The Market is Broken, How Can it Be fixed?

[RedJake]

I do not think I am alone in feeling that the palyer market is broken

in EL. The big questinos are why do we care, and what can we do

about it.

 

Why do we care?

 

No single player can become fully capable in EL, bulding and using

everything he needs without sacraficing abilities. This means that

all players specialize to some degree. This specialization is a good

thing because it provides players a reason to interact, making the

game more enjoyable.

 

There are a few basic reliable ways to make gold coins in EL; harvest

something like titainium or diamonds and sell them to the appropriate

NPC, make fire essences and sell them at the magic shop, get monster

drops and sell them to players or NPCS, or make/harvest items

and try and sell them to players. In this model, the EL market enables player

interactions throughout EL, wihcih is one of the best parts of EL.

 

However, because the market prices are so low, the more and more

realistic method for making gold coins is to make FEs or harvest. The

other outcome is that players form into small groups that can make

everthing they need and never interact outside of them. Both of these

outcomes result in less player interaction, reducing the quality of the

EL experience.

 

Why is this happening?

 

One of the biggest reasons the market is broken is because it requires

the construction of many items to level and the production cost of these

items is very high. This results in large supplies for a small demand.

Players need to recoup the cost to level further, so they sell bellow cost.

This stops many players from participating the manufacturing and

crafting skills as is evidenced by a level 30 manu person being in the

top 200 list and a level ~27 crafter being in the top 200 list.

 

Looking at production costs, there are many problems. A portland

tele ring costs about 120 gc to make, but you can buy it from the magic

shop for that price. A leather torso has 3 iron bars in it that you can

sell to an NPC for 75gc, plus it also has leather, but you can only sell

it on the market channel for about 80 gc.

 

Additional problems include monster drops that have no cost, so players

have no incentive to stay within production costs. And there are lots of

monster drops.

 

What to do

 

I can think of 2 basic ways to fix this problem. First put a floor and maybe

a ceiling on every item in the game (increase demand.) Or second,

drastically increase the XPs to manufacture items (decrease supply.)

 

A good example of the first case is a leather helmet. A leather helmet

costs 19.375 gc per helmet to make. You can sell it to Trik for 20 gc, and

on the open market for ~25 gc. This makes a decent profit for the effort

at high levels, and break even or slight losses at low levels when failures

are factored in. Therefore, if every item could be sold somewhere to

an NPC for 1 to 3% above or below manufacturing costs, I believe the market

would adjust to reasonable profits because the supply would be removed.

 

Another option is to limit the supply. The biggest reason for the over

supply is the need to get lots of XPs to get to higher levels to make

better stuff. Look at steel chainmail. This item gives 150 xps for

succesfully manufacturing it, but when you reached the suggested

manu level (30), you need ~40k XPS to reach the next level. With

the manu god and rationality bonus, that means you need to successfully

make ~200 steel chains. How about if you only had to successfully

make 20 steel chains, but it took an hour for 1 to be made? Think of

medevil armors, they probably made 100 steel chains in an entire

career!

 

I don't know that I have the best solutions proposed here, but I do know

that a fix is needed. The market one primary social outlet in game,

and right now it seems to me that it is drying up.

 

RJ

[FirEBallS]

 

if every item could be sold somewhere to

an NPC for 1 to 3% above or below manufacturing costs, I believe the market

would adjust to reasonable profits because the supply would be removed.

 

 

 

This sounds like a great Idea. Maybe something to look at.

I do agree the bottom has fallen out on manu and crafted items.

Edited March 10, 2006 by FirEBallS

[crusadingknight]

Additional problems include monster drops that have no cost, so players

have no incentive to stay within production costs. And there are lots of

monster drops.

 

Monster drops have a price: Weapons and armor which may break, essences, potions, blessings to kill the monster, and then the first ~40 levels, which have no actual profit, or have a profit vs. time margin less than that gained from harvesting. And then, rarity, and respawn times also contribute to the profit vs. time margin.

 

Also, the longer time/longer involvement system for manufacturing is already a goal for EL.

Still, nice to read a well-thought out and well-written post on the suggestions forum, and it looks like you've reached the same conclusion we did.

[Bharain]

Crafting:

 

You should be able to buy supplies, make something, sell at profit. With crafting you simply can't do this so crafters don't pass any gc to alchemists/harvesters.

 

An NPC who bought at about cost would get money flowing down the chain of crafters/alchemists/harvesters.

 

Monsters drop every single craftable item (except c2 rings?), if they stopped then maybe crafters could sell rings at a profit to the alchemists/harvesters they bought supplies from or to the fighters who those alchemists bought MM cloaks from.

 

Manu:

 

Problem here is monster drops and/or far too cheap NPC prices on everything but the steel shield, plate and serp. The result is all the manuers competing on very few items that not many people want to buy and therefore low prices.

 

Also the monster dropped books mean people can quite cheaply get the skill to make some of these items (steel shield/serp).

 

One suggestion i liked which might fix this, i think it was Blackthorne's idea:

 

1) raise the NPC prices on everything so a manuer can sell it for cheaper.

2) stop monsters dropping any books/finished articles. The books would become a money sink to maybe replace the manu items that you previously had to buy from NPCs.

 

Instead of dropping finished articles more drops should follow the serp stone model, instead of putting a manuer out of business you become his supplier. So for instance feran horns are used to make some kind of dagger or ogre bones are a component in an armour. Similar things for potions, some new stronger potions could require cyclops eyes or plasma (from Phantoms).

 

These things would have a small chance of being successfully harvested from a dead monster, after all you're a fighter not a butcher

 

This would keep fighters able to sell things to make a profit while bringing manuers back into the loop and therefore the alchemists/harvests.

 

As with crafting an NPC could be added to buy the finished products therefore allowing money to flow through the market better.

 

But with this idea where would the money flow out of the system? Magic weapons can only do so much. Perhaps aswell as components from fighters more items should need components only available from NPCs.

Edited March 10, 2006 by Bharain

[anthropologist]

Artificial floors on prices have been suggested before but i am glad to see it suggested again. It is not just the makers who are feeling the pinch of the game economy. There are a large group of players who are now in the 65-85 a/d range who are collecting the monster drops which we all looked forward to getting for so long only to find.....EVERYONE ALREADY HAS ONE (or several).

 

A place to dump items such as Mirror, MM, BP cloaks at a decent price would great, and reinvigorate the value of these items.

[kl4Uz]

Market is nothing that can be fixed. We have a free market economy in Eternal Lands with some exceptions.

 

As long as people keep buying and, more important, selling - the economy works!

 

Just because you don't like the prizes atm doesn't mean the economy doesn't work. I've played this game for quite some time and prices went up and down. That's just the way it should be.

 

with regards,

kl4Uz

 

edit: typo, thanks ryu

Edited March 10, 2006 by kl4Uz

[Ryu5659]

agreed... a market should be going up and down in prices. (you said prizes, kl4Uz. ) People will be buying more EFE 1 week, demand for it will increase as will the price. then when demand lowers, the price does to. A problem i see often (not in EL), is when there is so much demand for a single item. The prices keep raising and raising... They never would go down because demand for it keeps coming. This has happened in other games because the demand for it. In EL, however, demand can't be as strong.. IF i wanted to buy 100 rat tails (an average price is 3-5 gc0 and i buy at 4 gc. But nobody will sell to me unless i buy at 6 gc. I refuse it because I don't NEED to have someone else do it. There is always Plan DO it urself.

 

Bottom line? More demand for an item, Higher prices.

Edited March 10, 2006 by Ryu5659

[ttlanhil]

As long as people keep buying and, more important, selling - the economy works!

I remember back when there were more people asking to buy on chan 3 than trying to sell. those selling would usually have a buyer pretty quick (for most things)... the situation has reversed

the level of supply is increasing quickly, and it's accelerating, as the number of players at high levels goes up; making items to level means there will be stuff for sale whether they can sell it or not

this level of surplus creates problems. for one thing, the prices on those items go down. take EFE for example. there's a reasonable demand for FE, so people (especially newbs) will make them... and they hope for EFE since they sell for more cash than FEs. this is indicative of the oversuply... if they were still 'rare' then the price wouldn't crash

but who needs EFEs nowadays? there's a surplus of plate items for sale already, and people have a fair few EFE in stocks

as long as we have more people coming into the game, and stuff breaks, people will need replacements... does that mean buying, though?

partly because of the level of surplus, it's easier to give the stuff away in a contest rather than sell it (it's a lot more fun, too).

giving stuff away (or discount prices) in guilds isn't uncommon, which means you have mini-economies there, and even if a player can't be self-sufficient (many are, nowadays, if they don't mind the harvesting & processing time it takes), a guild easily can be

some people will take the ingredients for an item and make it... doesn't sound too bad, but it's more hiring an expert than true trade... and yes, it's not that bad

all that plus monster drops means that the need to go to chan 3 to buy stuff is not high for most items

 

so, okay, people still buy and sell... but does it happen as much as it used to?

yes and no. some things sell as well as ever. I can take 25k silver ore to chan 3 and get a buyer pretty quick.

on the other hand, damage rings now sell for 40gc (I've seen that offer recently, but I don't think they actually get sold often)... yet silver rings sell for more than that. and that's ignoring the cost of food (since feast pots are the only method for anything above hobby level production) and polished ruby

for most things, the level of trade seems to be decreasing. having trade isn't required to keep the economy going, having a constant level (roughly) of trade is

[kl4Uz]

You are absolutely right ttlanhil, but what is the conclusions? Is our conclusion that the market was great back in the days and it's bad nowadays or is it that it's just different nowadays?

 

More and more people have higher and higher levels and therefor the supply situation changes. The only way to change that is by adjusting the game to the new situation. Not by changing the breaking rates, not by changing the rare item rates. That would be reaction - not action! What we need is new challenges for high level or midlevel players. Back in the days a Chimmy was a nearly invincible enemy - nowadays it's not anymore. So get new content, new challenges, etc for advanced players - let the game grow

[ttlanhil]

You are absolutely right ttlanhil, but what is the conclusions? Is our conclusion that the market was great back in the days and it's bad nowadays or is it that it's just different nowadays?

I don't know that it was great way back when, but it was a sellers market, things would change hands when people had them to sell, and sellers could charge high prices

now it's a buyers market, there's many sellers to chose from and the buyers now need to undercut each other, or outbid each other, in order to sell on the open market.

the prices that are charged for various items are not the problem, nor is the change, but it's indicitive of the problem

More and more people have higher and higher levels and therefor the supply situation changes. The only way to change that is by adjusting the game to the new situation. Not by changing the breaking rates, not by changing the rare item rates. That would be reaction - not action! What we need is new challenges for high level or midlevel players. Back in the days a Chimmy was a nearly invincible enemy - nowadays it's not anymore. So get new content, new challenges, etc for advanced players - let the game grow

by committing to adding more stuff at the top end over and over, you're still reacting, and you've committed to keep reacting to reballance the market

not that adding things at the top end is a bad idea, but not for the economy. in that sense it's a continual battle that can never be won

changing breakage rates and rare item creation, however, is not so much reaction as it is tuning. to tune you need to adjust as you see things change, sure, and you might need to retune it later, but you're adusting the existing system in a way that will have lasting changes

 

in order to fix the economy, though, I think large changes would be needed

1: do away with the grind for leveling that produces items. if you do it for experience, you don't do it for money. if you do it for money, you don't get experience. you can, of course, have it not so extreme, so a certain item might be 90% profit and 10% experience, but the point is the same

this path has already been started upon, I beleive, though it will take quite some time for all items to be adusted to this path, and for the system to be tuned

1.1: reduce the ability of players to 'grind'. possibly progressive decreases in XP gained if you keep at the same thing for too long (the more challenging it is, the longer it takes before your mind wanders). correspondingly, increased failures (and critical failures) for those who grind too long will break the routine

note that this has to be carefully tuned per item. things like FE and HE do still sell (though FE prices on open market are now down to 3gc, so there's not a lot of demand), so should suffer less from preventing people mass-producing them.

2: revise the stats on many items. I'll take damage rings as an example, the cooldown time of a damage ring means that it's not used much anymore (they're made mostly made in the hopes of getting a RoP, I beleive). yes, the fight is more fair as an a/d vs a/d comparison. higher level players are likely to beat lower level players (and know that it will happen beforehand). is that good? I don't think so. more variance is a good thing

that's just one stat of one item, you can also look at food cost, the effects of something, changes of enrichment, etc

3: take away manu'able items from monster drops. at first the fighters will likely object to this one a lot, but they really won't be much worse off. let them get rare stones, capes, and coins (a lot more coins, instead of items).

coins are the one thing that can come from anywhere, any skill

things like capes that come only from fighters mean they have exclusive market on those items. as the market reaches saturation of those items, as it generally has now for capes, the prices will stabilise at a relatively low level

things like rare stones are okay, if it's things that would otherwise come from harvesting events. they're a nice suprise for a harvester, but not their main source of income.

things that are made or mined by people should not be drops. if a fighter can get their gear as drops, why do they need to go to market? if, instead, they have more cash to buy stuff made by other people, they aren't out any more coin, just a bit of time, and the market is driven

4: adjust XP gained based on your level. and I don't mean about stuff that's above your level, that's not such a problem. does the level 80alch player learn as much from making FE as a level 1alch player? well, actually, because of rationality they probably learn more. should they? I don't think so

FE will always be needed (with the current item-making structure), and some high-level players will make what they need, but taking the XP from it away from them will make them just that bit more likely to buy from lower level players.

a tiered market is far better, if players buy ingredients from other players, rather than make all steps themselves. more interaction.

5: do away with trade bots. yes, people will hate this idea. but I think it will have to be done. having bots manage your trade instead of yourself causes several problems

it's becoming closer to the consumer market of today's world. there's always items available for sale, and places keep trying to undercut each other. the larger places have the money to sell for less, even a loss, in order to win future business

people will go to the bots because they're there, and have a decent size stock. it's faster than sorting out a trade, price, and place to meet than a player. so people will accept paying more for the conveniance

on the other hand, the people who operate the bot now don't have to worry about the trading, advertising, and all the other issues, so they can spend more time making, and their profit vs time ratio is higher

there are bots that advertise FE for 3gc on chan 3. players would be foolish to sell for less (some newbies don't know that yet, but that's another issue), and can't compete with the conveniance

 

possible option: allow people to dismantle some items (bars may go back to ore, potions go back to a vial, swords return to metal and serp stone if applicable, etc). this would be to about half of the ingredients that make sence (getting FE or coal back from a bar isn't logical). this may decrease demand for the ingredients a bit (since you can pull it apart when you're done and get part of it back), but not by that large an amount. and since people can pull stuff apart, there's less of a case of huge numbers of finished, unsellable items in storage

another possible option is to calculate chances of a rare drop/special item harv event/enrichment taking into account the number of said item already in the game. you need to be pretty flexible, but if there are millions of serp stones in peoples storages, then we don't need too many more of them (again, just an example, but it is true of serp stones)

 

if there are things that I've said that people disagree with, please argue the point, and explain why it may not be true (this is especially about taking away trade bots people have paid for, because I know people will object to that. yes, you paid real money for it. sorry, but I think it's part of the problem)

[DemonCowboy]

You are absolutely right ttlanhil, but what is the conclusions? Is our conclusion that the market was great back in the days and it's bad nowadays or is it that it's just different nowadays?

I don't know that it was great way back when, but it was a sellers market, things would change hands when people had them to sell, and sellers could charge high prices

now it's a buyers market, there's many sellers to chose from and the buyers now need to undercut each other, or outbid each other, in order to sell on the open market.

the prices that are charged for various items are not the problem, nor is the change, but it's indicitive of the problem

More and more people have higher and higher levels and therefor the supply situation changes. The only way to change that is by adjusting the game to the new situation. Not by changing the breaking rates, not by changing the rare item rates. That would be reaction - not action! What we need is new challenges for high level or midlevel players. Back in the days a Chimmy was a nearly invincible enemy - nowadays it's not anymore. So get new content, new challenges, etc for advanced players - let the game grow

by committing to adding more stuff at the top end over and over, you're still reacting, and you've committed to keep reacting to reballance the market

not that adding things at the top end is a bad idea, but not for the economy. in that sense it's a continual battle that can never be won

changing breakage rates and rare item creation, however, is not so much reaction as it is tuning. to tune you need to adjust as you see things change, sure, and you might need to retune it later, but you're adusting the existing system in a way that will have lasting changes

 

in order to fix the economy, though, I think large changes would be needed

1: do away with the grind for leveling that produces items. if you do it for experience, you don't do it for money. if you do it for money, you don't get experience. you can, of course, have it not so extreme, so a certain item might be 90% profit and 10% experience, but the point is the same

this path has already been started upon, I beleive, though it will take quite some time for all items to be adusted to this path, and for the system to be tuned

1.1: reduce the ability of players to 'grind'. possibly progressive decreases in XP gained if you keep at the same thing for too long (the more challenging it is, the longer it takes before your mind wanders). correspondingly, increased failures (and critical failures) for those who grind too long will break the routine

note that this has to be carefully tuned per item. things like FE and HE do still sell (though FE prices on open market are now down to 3gc, so there's not a lot of demand), so should suffer less from preventing people mass-producing them.

2: revise the stats on many items. I'll take damage rings as an example, the cooldown time of a damage ring means that it's not used much anymore (they're made mostly made in the hopes of getting a RoP, I beleive). yes, the fight is more fair as an a/d vs a/d comparison. higher level players are likely to beat lower level players (and know that it will happen beforehand). is that good? I don't think so. more variance is a good thing

that's just one stat of one item, you can also look at food cost, the effects of something, changes of enrichment, etc

3: take away manu'able items from monster drops. at first the fighters will likely object to this one a lot, but they really won't be much worse off. let them get rare stones, capes, and coins (a lot more coins, instead of items).

coins are the one thing that can come from anywhere, any skill

things like capes that come only from fighters mean they have exclusive market on those items. as the market reaches saturation of those items, as it generally has now for capes, the prices will stabilise at a relatively low level

things like rare stones are okay, if it's things that would otherwise come from harvesting events. they're a nice suprise for a harvester, but not their main source of income.

things that are made or mined by people should not be drops. if a fighter can get their gear as drops, why do they need to go to market? if, instead, they have more cash to buy stuff made by other people, they aren't out any more coin, just a bit of time, and the market is driven

4: adjust XP gained based on your level. and I don't mean about stuff that's above your level, that's not such a problem. does the level 80alch player learn as much from making FE as a level 1alch player? well, actually, because of rationality they probably learn more. should they? I don't think so

FE will always be needed (with the current item-making structure), and some high-level players will make what they need, but taking the XP from it away from them will make them just that bit more likely to buy from lower level players.

a tiered market is far better, if players buy ingredients from other players, rather than make all steps themselves. more interaction.

5: do away with trade bots. yes, people will hate this idea. but I think it will have to be done. having bots manage your trade instead of yourself causes several problems

it's becoming closer to the consumer market of today's world. there's always items available for sale, and places keep trying to undercut each other. the larger places have the money to sell for less, even a loss, in order to win future business

people will go to the bots because they're there, and have a decent size stock. it's faster than sorting out a trade, price, and place to meet than a player. so people will accept paying more for the conveniance

on the other hand, the people who operate the bot now don't have to worry about the trading, advertising, and all the other issues, so they can spend more time making, and their profit vs time ratio is higher

there are bots that advertise FE for 3gc on chan 3. players would be foolish to sell for less (some newbies don't know that yet, but that's another issue), and can't compete with the conveniance

 

possible option: allow people to dismantle some items (bars may go back to ore, potions go back to a vial, swords return to metal and serp stone if applicable, etc). this would be to about half of the ingredients that make sence (getting FE or coal back from a bar isn't logical). this may decrease demand for the ingredients a bit (since you can pull it apart when you're done and get part of it back), but not by that large an amount. and since people can pull stuff apart, there's less of a case of huge numbers of finished, unsellable items in storage

another possible option is to calculate chances of a rare drop/special item harv event/enrichment taking into account the number of said item already in the game. you need to be pretty flexible, but if there are millions of serp stones in peoples storages, then we don't need too many more of them (again, just an example, but it is true of serp stones)

 

if there are things that I've said that people disagree with, please argue the point, and explain why it may not be true (this is especially about taking away trade bots people have paid for, because I know people will object to that. yes, you paid real money for it. sorry, but I think it's part of the problem)

 

this i actually agree w/ all but a few points

 

i think the rare stones should still b rare even if drops maybe not AS rare as harvesters but still rare to keep the price up but i do agree that there should be no manuable or harvestable items in drops but i think books should b more rare than they are too maybe more non-manu items like raw leather - collecting and selling in bulk they could still make a profit undercutting the cheap leather NPC and maybe even ccharge the same or more because of larger quantities and them not having to make multiple trips for it

 

i agree w/ the tradebots but i do believe that some bots would be ok like bots that trade just inguild for donations to the newer players and the like GOLD does this not only supplying stuff for the lower lvl players but letting them give certain stuff back so they can feel like they make a difference too but i do agree that bots shouldn't b used for outside trade for that DOES cause an unfair advantage - but i know this is done to bring RL revenue to the game and it's creators - maybe keep the current system but make outside guild tradebots against the rules mute them from channel 3 and the like we bought a cheap bot but will probably play the higher price later for the software because it would help if it had a tradelog to make it easier to see who takes what and gives what

 

as far as losing exp for items below u'r level i totally agree - a suggestion might be for every lvl over recomended lvl it loses 1 pt exp (just like when u gain an a/d lvl fighting something u lose a point in the skill gained in exp) adding reason/will will shore this a bit but u can't spend every 2 lvls u get into will so low lvl items will still eventually make u nothing for exp (or maybe let it just drop to 1 so it becomes like crushing bones into bones powders) but it will spur the economy making higher lvl players prefer to buy low lvl items from low lvl players

 

actually to dismantle certain items it should take MORE stuff like coal and FEs for metal items because i'll hand u a sword i have in real life and i'd like to see u take apart the blade and make bars out of it w/o re-melting it

 

the only suggestion i would add is either fixing the NPC economy w/ appropriate floors/ceilings (with an in stock feature so they can't b abused to make all kinds of money off of) or getting rid of them completely because the way the system is now if u pay enough attention it's EASY to exploit for example i have never made a feasting potion and never will under this system because i can MAKE money BUYING THEM!!!! yes i can sell PoRs for more than what it costs to buy a higher lvl potion they cost me hardly anything to make and i make 4gc on every 1 i make to buy a PoF w/ and i have an unlimited supply of vials that way so i don't have to worry about that either!!! and i've found other such discrepencies but i figure if i at least point out 1 that enough ppl will start using it to ruin the economy further so it WILL get the attention it deserves i make what i want and i only go on the market channel to buy - it's too easy to make money to bother selling anything on the market channel and since it's a buyers market it's not worth my time when i can make only a few select items and make all the money i need when i need it

[Torg]

1.1: reduce the ability of players to 'grind'.

This point I think is actually not a bad idea. Purely because it promotes higher level players relying on the lower levels, thus building an active market and producing demand for items and a reason for lower level players to make loads of an item and level up. If you remove the ability to make items for both sale and experience then you have a lot of wasted time and I'm not sure that I could handle that. I spend a *lot* of time doing things, for everything to be effectively twice as hard is ludicras (sp?), especially given how hard it is to level up in Manu currently. I think building a market for the items made from levelling up is the solution.

 

3: take away manu'able items from monster drops

I like this idea. I needs to be explain as you did, that there is compensation in the drops, but by removing manuable items, you are promoting trade through the different "skills". Especially, when combined with point 4 - Higher levels gaining nothing from manuing low level items. This promotes the market both up, and around (up through the levels, and around between fighters and supporters).

 

4: adjust XP gained based on your level

See my comments above. :-)

 

5: do away with trade bots.

This one I don't agree with. I acknowledge that some people do buy from bots over approaching the market, and that it is a problem, however removing them I don't think is the answer.

My reason for this is, I feel it make things a little fairer for those who don't get to play the game as often as some of us. I personally am a full-time student, studying 90% of my course from home. This means I have *loads* of time on my hands, and am logged into EL for probably 12-16 hours a day (although I'm afk alot. :-P). The point is, someone who is only on on weekends, or for an hour a night doesn't have the opportunities to sell items that I do. I can sit in the market channel and wait half a day for a buyer, or the right price from a seller. They don't have that chance, and by listing their item on a trade bot, it gives them the exposure that I have (or something similar).

Now, I will admit that I don't have a solution for this, but coming as someone who currently has ample time, I think it is unfair on those who don't have masses of time, to remove the bots. I think we need to develop a system that somehow promotes market activity and interaction, but doesn't damage those who don't get to play often.

There are plenty of other MMORPG's that have bots available, and the economies work with their presence so I don't think their removal is nessesarily the answer. Removing so many items from the market is better imo.

 

possible option: allow people to dismantle some items

I like this idea. I would think the ingredients you got back would be half (or less) of what they started as, but would appeal to me as collecting all the ingredients to make items and just dump them is a pain. If I could retrieve some of the ingredients from the item then it would be similar to point one, in that it would mean people don't make items just to level (and flood the market) as they would be making items to level, but dismantling them to do it again (of course requiring some more original items to keep things flowing).

 

Good work man. Some interesting points there.

[ttlanhil]

5: do away with trade bots.

This one I don't agree with. I acknowledge that some people do buy from bots over approaching the market, and that it is a problem, however removing them I don't think is the answer.

My reason for this is, I feel it make things a little fairer for those who don't get to play the game as often as some of us. I personally am a full-time student, studying 90% of my course from home. This means I have *loads* of time on my hands, and am logged into EL for probably 12-16 hours a day (although I'm afk alot. :-P). The point is, someone who is only on on weekends, or for an hour a night doesn't have the opportunities to sell items that I do. I can sit in the market channel and wait half a day for a buyer, or the right price from a seller. They don't have that chance, and by listing their item on a trade bot, it gives them the exposure that I have (or something similar).

Now, I will admit that I don't have a solution for this, but coming as someone who currently has ample time, I think it is unfair on those who don't have masses of time, to remove the bots. I think we need to develop a system that somehow promotes market activity and interaction, but doesn't damage those who don't get to play often.

There are plenty of other MMORPG's that have bots available, and the economies work with their presence so I don't think their removal is nessesarily the answer. Removing so many items from the market is better imo.

hmm... okay, I see your point... but I still say that bots are what's making EL a corporate marketplace

okay, how about this: system-owned bots/NPCs that will sel your stocks for you, and take a cut out of it? it's still convenient, but it's no longer a way for players with RL cash to remove half of the work

still not ideal, but better than what we currently have, I think. for this to work, though, you still need to do away with trade bots (and yes, store bots, communication, guard, etc can still be around. look at it the same as looking at macro'ing. should players be doing this?)

on the up side, it looks like we're starting on this path already

[Torg]

hmm... okay, I see your point... but I still say that bots are what's making EL a corporate marketplace

Yeah, that's fair.

 

okay, how about this: system-owned bots/NPCs that will sel your stocks for you, and take a cut out of it? it's still convenient, but it's no longer a way for players with RL cash to remove half of the work

Hmmmm, I don't really understand the difference. Surely it is more trouble to use RL cash to find such a bot. I don't see what having them system-owned does, sorry. I can only guess that you mean you buy a bot, stock it full of ingredients and have it do the manu and selling manually. If that's what you are talking about then I certainly disagree with that completely! Players should be doing the work, and leaving the completed item with the bot to sell.

 

still not ideal, but better than what we currently have, I think. for this to work, though, you still need to do away with trade bots (and yes, store bots, communication, guard, etc can still be around. look at it the same as looking at macro'ing. should players be doing this?)

on the up side, it looks like we're starting on this path already

Ok, I think related to above, is what is your distinction between a "trade bot" and a "store bot". I've always considered the two terms synonymous.

I agree the other's don't pose any problems (at least to the market).

[ttlanhil]

okay, how about this: system-owned bots/NPCs that will sel your stocks for you, and take a cut out of it? it's still convenient, but it's no longer a way for players with RL cash to remove half of the work

I don't see what having them system-owned does, sorry.

that allows them to be equally accessable to all, and have a standard 'cut' of the cash, whether that be 10%, 20%, whatever

Ok, I think related to above, is what is your distinction between a "trade bot" and a "store bot". I've always considered the two terms synonymous.

trade bots, well, trade things. they have to be paid for in RL cash. store bots, as in storage, are generally only available to people in the same guild, as a group storage

[Torg]

that allows them to be equally accessable to all, and have a standard 'cut' of the cash, whether that be 10%, 20%, whatever

Yeah ok, that's fair. Apart from taking a cut, I don't see why we'd need to remove trade bots.

trade bots, well, trade things. they have to be paid for in RL cash. store bots, as in storage, are generally only available to people in the same guild, as a group storage

Ahhhh, I've always thought of them as store (as in storage) but a few people I've talked to thought of them as store (as in store front) bots. As it is, they both need to be paid for these days. Any bot that trades, whether restricted to guild use only, or not must be paid for. *shrug* That to me means there is no difference except what someone chooses to use it for.

 

/edit: damn typos.

Edited March 12, 2006 by Torg

[DemonCowboy]

that allows them to be equally accessable to all, and have a standard 'cut' of the cash, whether that be 10%, 20%, whatever

Yeah ok, that's fair. Apart from taking a cut, I don't see why we'd need to remove trade bots.

the reason is because though it is a way for the casual gamer to get their market time what happens when some1 who spends alot of time playing gets a bot (like i know somet that do) and then a guild or whatnot just spends all that collected time keeping that bot stocked w/ items to sell (case in point richery) he can sell for less undercutting the market because he ALWAYS has a surplus of items so he can afford to always undercut everybody else and it's partly that kind of abuse that's killing the economy - if richery wasn't always around and always beyond full of items to sell at prices that ppl have a hard time competing w/ - why buy something for higher when u can just get it from a bot - and where do the weekend gamers stand now? they're still at a disadvantage with or without the bots - as they should be they want to be more competitive in the game whether its fighting or the market they should be here - u want casual effort u should only have casual results

[heu]

You still have the wrong idea about manufacturing...

People don't make expensive items to level manu, they make either leather helms or leather pants.

Most of this production is sold to Trik, so there's no oversupply here.

 

From my point of view, the real problem is the oversupply of EFE's for the following reasons:

- People buy them very cheap at the online store (with real money). Therefore, we have lots of EFE's in game, which means cheaper EFE's.

- Cheaper EFE's make high level armor also cheaper.

- High level armor cheaper makes people forget about low level stuff. Why would I buy item X for some gc if I can buy a better one with a little more?

 

I think a good solution would be increase the price for EFE's at the online store and to have a NPC buying stuff for a reasonable price. Lets say a Tit Serp for 15000 gc. Noone would sell them in market for less than that.

[ttlanhil]

You still have the wrong idea about manufacturing...

People don't make expensive items to level manu, they make either leather helms or leather pants.

Most of this production is sold to Trik, so there's no oversupply here.

really? my manu level is only 43, and there's a lot of people with higher, but I think it's high enough that I can say this isn't exactly true. I grind on helms, yes, but I also make swords and such from time to time, because of the sheer variety (plus they're like 5x the XP)

From my point of view, the real problem is the oversupply of EFE's for the following reasons:

- People buy them very cheap at the online store (with real money). Therefore, we have lots of EFE's in game, which means cheaper EFE's.

- Cheaper EFE's make high level armor also cheaper.

- High level armor cheaper makes people forget about low level stuff. Why would I buy item X for some gc if I can buy a better one with a little more?

oversupply of EFE is only one factor of economic problems. and you've hit on only one of the problems, that of buying items with real cash (and the line between buying stats and buying stuff that helps you get stats is a rather fine one). I still beleive that mass production of FE, results in more EFE than real cash purchases though.

2nd point: true enough

3rd point: only part of the issue. how many newbs think they should be wearing plate armour? people will want to have the best stuff available, even if it means spending a month carting lilacs (ahh, the crowds in mynadar back in the day...). why buy X if I can get something better at all, regardless of extra cost?

required levels are needed here. on one hand, people using stuff before they should are more likely to break it, and hence drive the market... but in practice this is insignificant enough not to work (even a real newb in plate armour isn't likely to break it anytime soon... and if they do, will they just give up and not spend more gc at all?)

I think a good solution would be increase the price for EFE's at the online store and to have a NPC buying stuff for a reasonable price. Lets say a Tit Serp for 15000 gc. Noone would sell them in market for less than that.

the obvious arguement here is that there's now an artificial minimum price, and people will get that much cash selling what they have... yes, it limits how low the price will go, but as long as there's a surplus it won't get much higher than that price either. and you'll have a huge influx of cash from all the people who have dozens or hundreds of serps in storage (or can make them, since 15k is about 100% profit on current production costs)

[DemonCowboy]

You still have the wrong idea about manufacturing...

People don't make expensive items to level manu, they make either leather helms or leather pants.

Most of this production is sold to Trik, so there's no oversupply here.

 

From my point of view, the real problem is the oversupply of EFE's for the following reasons:

- People buy them very cheap at the online store (with real money). Therefore, we have lots of EFE's in game, which means cheaper EFE's.

- Cheaper EFE's make high level armor also cheaper.

- High level armor cheaper makes people forget about low level stuff. Why would I buy item X for some gc if I can buy a better one with a little more?

 

I think a good solution would be increase the price for EFE's at the online store and to have a NPC buying stuff for a reasonable price. Lets say a Tit Serp for 15000 gc. Noone would sell them in market for less than that.

 

i still think an easier way for that is to reduce the experience u get per item 1pt per lvl above the recommended lvl i guarantee ppl will stop grinding on the lower stuff if theyre not going to get any exp for it - seems simple enough and problem might not b solved on grinding but it sure cuts it shorter per person

[The_Piper]

i still think an easier way for that is to reduce the experience u get per item 1pt per lvl above the recommended lvl i guarantee ppl will stop grinding on the lower stuff if theyre not going to get any exp for it - seems simple enough and problem might not b solved on grinding but it sure cuts it shorter per person

 

And then? The market will be flooded with swords except with pants. Since ppl *MUST* make items to level up, market flooding will always happen.

 

Piper

[Mireille]

Therefore, if every item could be sold somewhere to

an NPC for 1 to 3% above or below manufacturing costs, I believe the market

would adjust to reasonable profits because the supply would be removed.

 

 

It has been suggested many times by many players (including yours truly). You HAVE TO make tons of garbage to advance in a skill. If you could get rid of it at a price covering at least your expenses + a small margin and sell it to an npc, there would be less stuff on the market and prices would rise. I don't know why it hasn't been implemented yet.

[DemonCowboy]

i still think an easier way for that is to reduce the experience u get per item 1pt per lvl above the recommended lvl i guarantee ppl will stop grinding on the lower stuff if theyre not going to get any exp for it - seems simple enough and problem might not b solved on grinding but it sure cuts it shorter per person

 

And then? The market will be flooded with swords except with pants. Since ppl *MUST* make items to level up, market flooding will always happen.

 

Piper

 

thats only partly true - ppl at different lvls will be making different things taking exp away like that that way instead of 50 ppl making and selling pants maybe 5 ppl will b making pants 5 ppl will be making torsos 7 ppl making swords etc etc etc it would balance the market out a bit it's not a solution all to itself but it WILL help

[heu]

You still have the wrong idea about manufacturing...

People don't make expensive items to level manu, they make either leather helms or leather pants.

Most of this production is sold to Trik, so there's no oversupply here.

really? my manu level is only 43, and there's a lot of people with higher, but I think it's high enough that I can say this isn't exactly true. I grind on helms, yes, but I also make swords and such from time to time, because of the sheer variety (plus they're like 5x the XP)

And do you make those swords to get XP? I think my level 44 of manu is also high enough to tell that it's not worth it. It would be if you could sell them for a reasonable price though. Again, who would buy a steel slong sword for 500gc if you can also buy a tit short for the same price?

From my point of view, the real problem is the oversupply of EFE's for the following reasons:

- People buy them very cheap at the online store (with real money). Therefore, we have lots of EFE's in game, which means cheaper EFE's.

- Cheaper EFE's make high level armor also cheaper.

- High level armor cheaper makes people forget about low level stuff. Why would I buy item X for some gc if I can buy a better one with a little more?

oversupply of EFE is only one factor of economic problems. and you've hit on only one of the problems, that of buying items with real cash (and the line between buying stats and buying stuff that helps you get stats is a rather fine one). I still beleive that mass production of FE, results in more EFE than real cash purchases though.

I'm sure the chance of making an EFE has changed in that last few days or so. (correct me if I'm wrong) Maybe we should wait for its impact on that matter.

Anyway, I remember about radu himself saying that lots of people buy EFE's with real money. So I don't think it will change much.

2nd point: true enough

3rd point: only part of the issue. how many newbs think they should be wearing plate armour? people will want to have the best stuff available, even if it means spending a month carting lilacs (ahh, the crowds in mynadar back in the day...). why buy X if I can get something better at all, regardless of extra cost?

required levels are needed here. on one hand, people using stuff before they should are more likely to break it, and hence drive the market... but in practice this is insignificant enough not to work (even a real newb in plate armour isn't likely to break it anytime soon... and if they do, will they just give up and not spend more gc at all?)

I think we shouldn't expect newbs to break their plates to fix that problem. From my point of view, there should be a natural evolution. Everybody wants the best stuff, but they shouldn't be able to afford it that quickly.

I think a good solution would be increase the price for EFE's at the online store and to have a NPC buying stuff for a reasonable price. Lets say a Tit Serp for 15000 gc. Noone would sell them in market for less than that.

the obvious arguement here is that there's now an artificial minimum price, and people will get that much cash selling what they have... yes, it limits how low the price will go, but as long as there's a surplus it won't get much higher than that price either. and you'll have a huge influx of cash from all the people who have dozens or hundreds of serps in storage (or can make them, since 15k is about 100% profit on current production costs)

You're absolutely right about the influx of cash, but I think it's getting worse like this and I don't see a better solution.

[Arnieman]

Therefore, if every item could be sold somewhere to

an NPC for 1 to 3% above or below manufacturing costs, I believe the market

would adjust to reasonable profits because the supply would be removed.

 

 

It has been suggested many times by many players (including yours truly). You HAVE TO make tons of garbage to advance in a skill. If you could get rid of it at a price covering at least your expenses + a small margin and sell it to an npc, there would be less stuff on the market and prices would rise. I don't know why it hasn't been implemented yet.

I can tell you exactly why such an idea has been shelved if even considered - as I said earlier, we are not experiencing inflation.

 

As I said in an earlier post that apparently has been conveniently ignored, the economy in game is deflating severely. We are still combating that deflation like we'd combat inflation - pull the gold out of the economy with money sinks. In the meantime, prices are dropping like a rock! Still, everyone's afraid to have any possibility of "gold" actually entering the market for most skills...