Question about the economy

[Khalai]

To just shut up and do nothing is a very bad attitude and life opinion. If someone told you to pay double the income tax rate, would you just shut up and get on with it? Or would you discuss it? If we prohibit and mute people's opinions, we are doomed as a society. And this can be extented to this if you don't hear people out.

 

Learn to understand an example. It was no comparision whatsoever.

 

Lol comparing with this is a EPIC FAIL!...after all, all of this 14 pages before are talking about changing things, and not discussing the change itself...sure it's ok to talk about it, but talking about the same thing 100th time, well, if I was in ent's shoes I would ignore all of this out of spite if nothing else...

 

Then I am glad, you are not.

Edited January 19, 2009 by Khalai

[ProHibited]

I must say that previous threads about 'fixing the economy' have lead to many good suggestions. I think that 'the' solution is out there and has been read by the developers.

 

The work required to 'fix' the economy is huge and ongoing. Every change will create new flaws, when one problem is solved another will arise. Without moderation a game-economy dies probably sooner then later. I have seen it happen, and the players will not be able to fix it since not everybody wants to help (you cant demand a helping hand from everyone).

 

If you want to read good suggestions read: http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.p...=24624&st=0

 

 

Almost Every item should be worth making. When is an item worth making:

1- Status/Rare item ("I just made special sword of coolness!")

2- GC ("I can earn 2k/hour by just training this skill!")

3- EXP ("I can get 50% more exp by making this item, loosing just 5k/hour!")

 

1: we already have rare items, which is a good incentive to make great swords for example

.

2: Having NPC's buy/sell stuff to achieve this is not a solution to fix the GC part. Dynamic pricing could act as a buffer or having NPC's buy only x number of items from a certain player per day along with a max #number of a specific item in storage. (different number for different items, like max 1000 Medallions of one type, max 1000 swords of one type)

 

3: Skill schools already give extra exp for higher costs.

[nathanstenzel]

It sounds like the economy has been talked about for quite some time and at Entropy's request. Alot came of it over time too. The problem may be less a problem with the game than the players. Discussion is key to making improvements. Discuss nothing and you improve nothing.

 

You can make money in about every skill but manu and that, I think we can all agree is the main problem with the economy. No profit for manu makes manufacturers like me just want to flip you the bird when you try to buy something. Then, you sit there and wonder why you can't get the item you want. Great swords seem to have gone up in value some. They are now at about 25K, I guess. At least I saw a few people buying them for that price. It is less of a loss than before. One tricky thing is to keep ingreds prices in line with the finished good prices. Luckily, the steel bar and iron bars can't go up much more in price. The bars are 35-40 vs 50gc for iron and 45-50 vs 70gc for steel. Yes, I am comparing market prices to npc prices. That means market price for bars is about 70% of the npc price.

[DanRothar]

I have read most of this thread, and as I see it the "problem" with the economy or rather, the fact that the value of the end-product is less then cost of the ingredients, has three distinct causes:

1. Drop rate is higher then breakage rate. When monsters drop a fair number of items, that is not in great demand, the price on those items goes down. When the same item is manufacturable the end product will have a low value, but the item might be "needed" to gain xp for the next level in the skill.
   
2. Production is greater then demand. Some items have little use in the game, but are easily manufacturable and give good xp or they are the common version of a rare item. Both of these reasons causes the production of an item to be much higher then the demand.
   
3. Ingredients are more valuable in other products. For some products the rare ingredients used might be more profitably used in other products. As opposed to the two other reasons, this does not result in overproduction but rather to scarcity. Some might still produce the items to gain xp, but not enough to satisfy the market.
   

Common for the production of all value-loss items is that some players are willing to produce with a loss, due to the fact that they gain xp doing so.

 

I know of no easy solution..... in fact I don't believe there is an easy solution, and doubt a solution exists at all. Parts of it might be repaired, but as long as there are players willing to produce at a loss either to gain xp, rare items, or for any other reason, or players collecting all their ingredients themselves, there will be items that cost less then the ingredients on the open market.

 

Letting an NPC buy unlimited items at prices over the price of the ingredients, is only going to raise the market price of those ingredients, as there will still be people willing to produce them at a loss, unless an NPC sells unlimited ingredients at a low cost, witch is not an option, as it will do far more damage then good.

[Ateh]

The only solution I can see is for players who produce items to sell them for the cost of ingredients , but this would require those players to come to a concensus regarding prices, and to continually review these prices in accordance with ever changing costs of rare ingredients.

 

As has been said before, this will probably never happen for a number of reasons , one being there will allways be someone who will undercut , and second being to try to get the EL community to agree on anything at all is near on impossible maybe because the facade of community agreement is stronger than the in game reality ..........

 

really the only people ive seen speak up in here about prices are manuers, so does that mean all other skills can break even at some point ? I doubt it , but perhaps the greatest losses are aparent in manufacturing due to the rare items involved in making higher end items, and there are lots of them, not just a few crowns. You may quote the previous statement in any future discussions lol

 

Lastly i'll say it again, I don't believe the problem lies with the game economics, I believe the problem lies with the player base who are unable to take control of the economy once it is in thier hands to do so. We may be powerless when it comes to controlling what comes into and out of the game, but anything past that is WELL within our reach of influencing, we just choose not to get together and do anything about it other than post on these forums how shit it all is.

 

*edit* editing improves your donuts

Edited January 20, 2009 by Ateh

[Wizzy]

The only solution I can see is for players who produce items to sell them for the cost of ingredients , but this would require those players to come to a concensus regarding prices, and to continually review these prices in accordance with ever changing costs of rare ingredients.

 

As has been said before, this will probably never happen for a number of reasons , one being there will allways be someone who will undercut , and second being to try to get the EL community to agree on anything at all is near on impossible maybe because the facade of community agreement is stronger than the in game reality ..........

 

really the only people ive seen speak up in here about prices are manuers, so does that mean all other skills can break even at some point ? I doubt it , but perhaps the greatest losses are aparent in manufacturing due to the rare items involved in making higher end items, and there are lots of them, not just a few crowns. You may quote the previous statement in any future discussions lol

 

Lastly i'll say it again, I don't believe the problem lies with the game economics, I believe the problem lies with the player base who are unable to take control of the economy once it is in thier hands to do so. We may be powerless when it comes to controlling what comes into and out of the game, but anything past that is WELL within our reach of influencing, we just choose not to get together and do anything about it other than post on these forums how shit it all is.

 

*edit* editing improves your donuts

 

Good point, really this discribes Guild or Unions (we have the technology) but we do not have this in play. All that is needed is a strong guild leader, and price fixing ftw

[Entropy]

Well, it's not like the real life provides a framework for Unions. Unions ar enothing more than a buch of people from an industry that come together and say: "let's join up and go on strike together and demand more and more until our companies get out of business".

[nathanstenzel]

Here is another possible way to help improve the economy. Apprenticeships. It would require more finished items that are used to make other finished items and a slightly different way of thinking for a number of us. I have posted a thread in the skills section.

 

http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=48004

 

Of course, we may need to adjust a few things to make this fly, but it might be worth a shot.

[Wizzy]

Well, it's not like the real life provides a framework for Unions. Unions ar enothing more than a buch of people from an industry that come together and say: "let's join up and go on strike together and demand more and more until our companies get out of business".

lol true in a sense

 

However Guilds have been around for many hundreds of years, in an organized sense of labour (stone masons for example)

 

of course corruption follows

[DanRothar]

Well, it's not like the real life provides a framework for Unions. Unions ar enothing more than a buch of people from an industry that come together and say: "let's join up and go on strike together and demand more and more until our companies get out of business".

That depends on where you live, in Denmark there is a framework for unions, here the companies are organized in one set of unions, and the workers are organized in another set of unions, they then get together and agree on wages, number of work hours, etc. or if you work in the private sector, on minimum wages, standard work hours, etc. etc. In some cases the workers unions have actually agreed on lower wages or longer work hours to save the company and thus the jobs.

But even if the majority of players agreed to such a system, who are the workers or the employers? In EL the workers sell directly to the costumers, unless they sell through bots that is, and in many cases the workers interest is to cover as much of the cost of training the skill involved, rather than making money, so you would have workers arguing for lower wages.

[Ateh]

*puts on his politics hat*

 

its more than likely been suggested many times but put simply an EL Manufacturing Union would do the following :

 

a. Inspire the EL Manu'ers to get together , perhaps on a seperate forums , simply to discuss setting minimum prices for finished products.

 

b. Explain the reasoning behind the movement, that is to create a fair price for manu items based upon current and changing ingredients pricing

 

c. Work to inform people clearly of the difference between cost of ingredients and cost of finished products as they are now -- i.e keep tabs on the market channel and when somebody asks the price of a manu Item , people from the movement spam the channel with the agreed prices

 

d. Encourage all manu people to get a fair price, sure if someone wants to undercut the movement then its fair game there will allways be that one person, but they cant suppy the whole of EL and sooner or later unless they own 10 bots & or alot of RL $ wont be able to keep business going at a loss

 

Honestly though, thats just a quick idea of how it might work i'm sure someone else could get alot more political if they felt like it but lets face facts it would perhaps be too revolutionary for the community of EL who pride themselves on being able to screw each other over while hiding behind the illusiory veil of a united community voice.

 

Also it wont happen because this isnt the real world and I cant get elected by bulls hitting my way to victory hiding behind such words as change and yes we can

 

*end of boring typing*

[Entropy]

That depends on where you live, in Denmark there is a framework for unions

 

Lol, no, it doesn't depend where you live.

Last time I checked, the laws of the Universe applied in Denmark pretty much the same as everywhere else in our solar system, and possibly all over the Universe.

And in those laws there was no framework for unions, or if there is, we didn't discover it yet.

[Ateh]

by the way I wasnt suggesting anyone actually try to create a manu'ers union, good luck with that lol

 

there are more serious things happening in the world anyway than the price of a binding stone

[TirunCollimdus]

I don't see any real solution to the economy problem other than patience. The fact that player built cities are on the way no matter how far off really does make this thread almost entirely moot. The change with player built cities will so radically alter game economy that scrabbling over what makes money and what doesn't is almost pointless. I do agree that something besides leather helms(when you make your own thread) should make money for manufacturers. S2Es can do that it seems to a small degree. I think we just need to live with what we have even if it is less fair to manuers than to anyone else until the player build cities arrive. Perhaps something somewhere in the thread will bring a small tweak to manuing for money.

 

Tirun

[Silvatica]

Its not the manufacturers problem that they get to little for items they make - its other things.

 

Example 1: empty vials

NPC sell empty vials for 5gc in Melinas.

 

Ingredients 1 FE a 3.5gc and 2 Quarts a 2gc or total of 5.5gc

 

You cant buy vial mold today since the price of EFE has made making vial molds a big net loss. With a EFE costing 7.5Kgc the cost of a vial mold should be nearly 8kgc to allow for it being made with profit and accounting for fails food and stuff.

 

Thus if we add the cost of a vial mold with a assumed break rate of 1/2000 it adds 4gc each and the food cost; to sell without a profit loss the realistic break-even price for a empty vial should be 10gc.

 

Net loss 5gc each for empty vials because of NPC undercutting the price.

 

 

So even if manufacturers would form a union the NPC would make it impossible to get a fair price for empty vials.

 

Example 2: feasting potion available from Mira for 12gc

 

Ingredients: empty vial - 5gc raw meat 5gp vegetable 0.5 fruit 1gc wine 0.75gc for a total of 12.25gc with food say that its needed to sell at 13 to make it break-even to profitable.

 

However if the price for empty vials is corrected to 10gc the price needed to make a profit is 18 gc.

 

Actually all potion prices need to go up if empty vials are sold at a fair price.

 

Note that this requires one to do the quest to buy cheap wine.

 

So how shall ever a mixer make any money when the NPC undercut any chance to make a profit ?

 

Most people just do the above items to gain experience and for their own use since they know they never will make a profit of them as long as the NPC undercut their price.

 

The best way to make money today is being a harvester. You may not get alot of experience but raw materials still pay good compared to manufactured items. Mostly because NPC and drops from monsters hold down the price of manufactured items.

 

PS The solution for this is the increase the NPC prices when needed so it dont undercut the price of the ingredients and to change the drops so drops are changed from items that is manufacturable to items that are not for example instead of dropping a leather torso - drop extra gc so the fighter can buy the torso from a manufacturer instead.

Edited January 22, 2009 by Silvatica

[nathanstenzel]

Its not the manufacturers problem that they get to little for items they make - its other things.

<CLIP>

Example 2: feasting potion available from Mira for 12gc

 

Ingredients: empty vial - 5gc raw meat 5gp vegetable 0.5 fruit 1gc wine 0.75gc for a total of 12.25gc with food say that its needed to sell at 13 to make it break-even to profitable.

<CLIP>

The best way to make money today is being a harvester. You may not get alot of experience but raw materials still pay good compared to manufactured items. Mostly because NPC and drops from monsters hold down the price of manufactured items.

 

PS The solution for this is the increase the NPC prices when needed so it dont undercut the price of the ingredients and to change the drops so drops are changed from items that is manufacturable to items that are not for example instead of dropping a leather torso - drop extra gc so the fighter can buy the torso from a manufacturer instead.

 

There is a conflict between harvester and end user prices. If the harvester charges too much, the end users can't make profit unless they oppose the market prices and demand more for their trouble. Of course, with break rates figured in and npc prices figured in, it might still not be feasible.

 

The prices for iron ore have gone up and have forced the prices of iron and steel bars to go up which demands the prices for s2e, swords and other metal gear go up.

 

There is one thing that I don't agree with in your FP prices. Fruit should be 0.6gc and not 1gc. It is easy to harvest and shouldn't even get more than 0.5gc if it was not for the fact that the bartenders buy them for 0.6gc.

 

I agree with you on the drop rates of manu items affecting the manu prices too. It would also make more sense for animals and monsters to have things that look pretty on them then have swords and armor on them that they don't use or find to be valuable.

Edited January 22, 2009 by nathanstenzel

[fitzer]

The big problems with manufacture are time and cost.

 

Example, the only (not the only but the most common) profitable item, leather helmets: 4 threads, 3 leather. In order to have a gc gain you need to make your own threads. In one hour with enough EMU one can do up to 340 threads. The leather is convenient only after the dream quest. Then you need FPS or try to eat mushrooms (and often it takes to death). I made a session of 2000 leather helmets, i had a gain of 1.700gc and 4 levels from 22 to 26. But i spent a lot of time to make 2k threads. If one buy threads then no gain... and obviously no one will buy leather helmets for more than 20gc each. So, the right thing should be a decrease time for harvesting cotton.

 

A similar time problem is caused when making bars. Making FE is slow because of sulfur harvesting weight and time. Next, collecting coal is slow due to weight and time.

Bars are needed for almost every item under manufacturing.... and we have a significant slow down on making base thing to mix the ingredient needed to mix the final item. If one buy the item instead of making it by himself, a loss is granted.

 

Why not focus on time reducing for basic ingredients, sulfur, coal, cotton, instead of focusing on final price? Maybe it will be necessary to decrease the XP for mixed bar, FE's and threads to balance the amount that will be created, but manufacturing could become a little easier and much less frustrating.

[Entropy]

Example 1: empty vials

NPC sell empty vials for 5gc in Melinas.

 

Ingredients 1 FE a 3.5gc and 2 Quarts a 2gc or total of 5.5gc

 

You cant buy vial mold today since the price of EFE has made making vial molds a big net loss. With a EFE costing 7.5Kgc the cost of a vial mold should be nearly 8kgc to allow for it being made with profit and accounting for fails food and stuff.

 

Thus if we add the cost of a vial mold with a assumed break rate of 1/2000 it adds 4gc each and the food cost; to sell without a profit loss the realistic break-even price for a empty vial should be 10gc.

 

Net loss 5gc each for empty vials because of NPC undercutting the price.

 

Lol, you got to be kidding me.

[nathanstenzel]

The big problems with manufacture are time and cost.

<CLIP>

... and obviously no one will buy leather helmets for more than 20gc each.

<CLIP>

Bars are needed for almost every item under manufacturing.... and we have a significant slow down on making base thing to mix the ingredient needed to mix the final item. If one buy the item instead of making it by himself, a loss is granted.

 

Why not focus on time reducing for basic ingredients, sulfur, coal, cotton, instead of focusing on final price? Maybe it will be necessary to decrease the XP for mixed bar, FE's and threads to balance the amount that will be created, but manufacturing could become a little easier and much less frustrating.

 

If leather helms were not the easiest way to level manufacturing, then people would probably pay more for them. They are overproduced.

 

While reducing the weight and increasing the harvesting speed for some of the ingredients like coal, sulfur, cotton would make it easier to get the bars and thread for manu, there is a higher level problem that would need to be taken care of after such an adjustment. The hydro bars and wolfram bars would then be too easy to get because you could get s2e and steel longs easier. Of course, those wolfram and hydro bars are not worth squat without the rare ingredients like binding stones, EFE, serpent stones and such which are required to make the rare swords and armor. Come to think of it, since they would be easier to get ahold of, there is a chance that those prices would drop and the great swords and the armor could be profitable again.....until someone decides to ruin it by undercutting. Now, for another interesting point, the finished goods couldn't fall too low in price since I think the npc's in a few places would then buy the finished goods for what would be considered profitable with the new boil down of prices. This could produce more of these items which would result in the chance to produce the rare mixes of these items to be less likely. Hmmmmm.....interesting .....

[Silvatica]

Example 1: empty vials

NPC sell empty vials for 5gc in Melinas.

 

Ingredients 1 FE a 3.5gc and 2 Quarts a 2gc or total of 5.5gc

 

You cant buy vial mold today since the price of EFE has made making vial molds a big net loss. With a EFE costing 7.5Kgc the cost of a vial mold should be nearly 8kgc to allow for it being made with profit and accounting for fails food and stuff.

 

Thus if we add the cost of a vial mold with a assumed break rate of 1/2000 it adds 4gc each and the food cost; to sell without a profit loss the realistic break-even price for a empty vial should be 10gc.

 

Net loss 5gc each for empty vials because of NPC undercutting the price.

 

Lol, you got to be kidding me.

 

 

The reason you have stats that people make empty vials has everything to do with them just needing artificial 1 and can be used to advance crafting.

 

All other good ways to advance crafting requires a high nexus, not all know how to harvest sapphires. Making empty vials is the only way to go to advance crafting when making threads aren't enough; even though polishing sapphires and then making moon medallions are a much faster way to advance crafting.

 

As for the assumption of 1 in 2000 - yeah I know its a bit high!?! - my actual stats is about 1 in 500 so my attempt at making empty vials has cost me at least 15gc for each empty vial. The actual breakage rate is only know to you and we others just have to guess. So 1 in 2000 is my guess based on the breakage on my vial molds and alembics.

[Silvatica]

A similar time problem is caused when making bars. Making FE is slow because of sulfur harvesting weight and time. Next, collecting coal is slow due to weight and time.

Bars are needed for almost every item under manufacturing.... and we have a significant slow down on making base thing to mix the ingredient needed to mix the final item. If one buy the item instead of making it by himself, a loss is granted.

 

Mix in caves. Exist one cave with everything to make FE and several caves with iron and coal - don't need to haul it.

 

Know a good place where you can leave with 20 FE, 3 axes white, brown and green cloaks and aug lether set then go to a cave to make FE and get food and then with half food half FE go to another cave and turn FE it into bars and return with an inventory half full of bars and half full of iron ore.

 

Making bars are one of best way to make money in the game I can get 5kgc/h doing it. The slowest part is making the FE so I often buy FE to make money faster. For me doing anything else then steel bars are a money loss.

[nathanstenzel]

<CLIP>

The reason you have stats that people make empty vials has everything to do with them just needing artificial 1 and can be used to advance crafting.

 

All other good ways to advance crafting requires a high nexus, not all know how to harvest sapphires. Making empty vials is the only way to go to advance crafting when making threads aren't enough; even though polishing sapphires and then making moon medallions are a much faster way to advance crafting.

<CLIP>

While I don't have an oppinion on the vial market, I would like to make a suggestion for that crafting training after thread. The gold medallions also have artificial nexus of 1. Go to PV and check out the gold cave. Mix them there. Later, you can do sun medallions there, but those take 3 artificial and 2 magic. Oh. And you could surely make the plain gold rings there too. Just bring your molds and the FE (or flowers for them). Sell the sun medallions in glacmore so you don't flood the market, ok?

 

As for the vial molds not being worth buying and using, I think that might be right as long as you are not trying to just pay for xp.

[Ateh]

For me doing anything else then steel bars are a money loss.

 

what about buying iron ore for 2.5gc when the price has been 3gc for the past 3 years? or selling diamonds for 3.5 when the price has been 3 for the past how many years ? thats a nice way to make your GC it seems

 

And your buying price for EFE is 1-2 years out of date to so to me it seems you would like best of both worlds , cheap for yourself and expensive for everyone else ??

[Silvatica]

For me doing anything else then steel bars are a money loss.

 

what about buying iron ore for 2.5gc when the price has been 3gc for the past 3 years? or selling diamonds for 3.5 when the price has been 3 for the past how many years ? thats a nice way to make your GC it seems

 

And your buying price for EFE is 1-2 years out of date to so to me it seems you would like best of both worlds , cheap for yourself and expensive for everyone else ??

 

A harvesting team recently sold iron ore for 2gc, the bot puppy pays 2.2gc Ambril 2.5gc Lord_legend 2.5gc Shrimtaco 2.5gc - my 2.5gc are thus a price many other thinks that is correct for iron ore.

 

As for diamond - not one single bot today sell diamonds on the open market. The NPC Harvy buys diamonds for 3gc so its not THE price - its the lower end of the price range. If people want to buy diamonds they have to pay more then Harvy. What you really should complain about are all those that sell for 3gc or less - they probably don't even know that they can sell it for more to Harvy in DP.

 

Check what Islena, Pru, Clf, Cupido currently pay for EFE - they all pay 6K! So no I'm not alone to pay that for an EFE. Personally I see no reason to pay more for an EFE then what I can get when I sell the items I can make with an EFE. If people wants to pay more for the items I can make with an EFE - then I can offer more for buying EFEs - now I just have to pay what I can get on my end. The price for EFE has skyrocketed because of a shortage - people are hoarding them and not letting them out on the market. As the hoarding ends the price of EFE will return to a level where people again can afford to make items with EFE and not get a net loss.

 

The market price is what people are willing to pay - if you don't like it, don't trade.

Edited January 23, 2009 by Silvatica

[Ateh]

A harvesting team recently sold iron ore for 2gc, the bot puppy pays 2.2gc Ambril 2.5gc Lord_legend 2.5gc Shrimtaco 2.5gc - my 2.5gc are thus a price many other thinks that is correct for iron ore.

bots mostly, this economy in EL should be lead by players , not bots

As for diamond - not one single bot today sell diamonds on the open market. The NPC Harvy buys diamonds for 3gc so its not THE price - its the lower end of the price range. If people want to buy diamonds they have to pay more then Harvy. What you really should complain about are all those that sell for 3gc or less - they probably don't even know that they can sell it for more to Harvy in DP.

 

bots again, plus there are some NCP's that buy steel greaves for 19k, does this mean you will only pay 19k for them ?

Check what Islena, Pru, Clf, Cupido currently pay for EFE - they all pay 6K! So no I'm not alone to pay that for an EFE. Personally I see no reason to pay more for an EFE then what I can get when I sell the items I can make with an EFE. If people wants to pay more for the items I can make with an EFE - then I can offer more for buying EFEs - now I just have to pay what I can get on my end. The price for EFE has skyrocketed because of a shortage - people are hoarding them and not letting them out on the market. As the hoarding ends the price of EFE will return to a level where people again can afford to make items with EFE and not get a net loss.

bots again actually its this way of thinking that is causing headache to manuers of high end armors ( well not headache just pain in the ass a bit ), hoarding is not going to stop magically and the price of EFE isnt going to come down any time soon ( people were speculating that 10 months ago ) so the only solution is to raise the end item prices in line with current ingredient prices, but thats something the players themselves have to do and not rest false hope with the magical releasing of the worlds EFE that have been hoarded ....... plus havent you noticed that the bots who are buying the EFE are turning around and selling it for 8k ??

The market price is what people are willing to pay - if you don't like it, don't trade.

 

thanks I wont

 

I rest my case on the question of bots having evolved to dictate market prices , this guy/girl seems to think you should check bots for current market prices, which if you ask me is a shame, because it should be the vast majority of non bots dictating market prices and not the other way around, again thats down to actual players to do something about , and not wait for the magical days when hoarding stops , cats and dogs live in peace and the angels come down from heaven and give us all cookies