Question about the economy

[nathanstenzel]

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 ),

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

Very well said.

 

Bots buy and sell at "you must be desperate" prices, folk. 95% of the time, this will be the case.

[Thyralax]

Umm no offence here, but it doesnt matter how much you can sell a leather helm for no one will buy them. The only players to use leather helms are newbies (who generally dont have loads of gc to spend), and then only for a very short ammount of time. As soon as its possible they move on to iron helms and then onto crowns or possibly but rarely steel/ti helms.

 

So increasing the cost of the leather helm wont increase the demand for said item, and if trik did pay more for the said helm, or if the ingrediants were less then the market would become flooded with higher level manufactuers making even more higher level items and thus moving the complaints onto that focus.

 

I personally like the fact that manufacturing is hard to do, and yes we all know that most manufactured items cost more to make than to produce if you buy the ingrediants. But at the end of the day if you want to make for example a steel long sword why are you paying 40-45gc per bar? It's down to the buyers to say. No i wont pay that much its practical fpor me to pay 35gc and thats it. Dont want to sell to me then fine ill go make my own bars. or wait till i find someone willing to sell at a resonable price.

 

The same goes for everything ingame. Some items by deffinition should be expensive others shouldnt. It is us the players that set these prices.

 

But again i still have no problems with the way it currently works. There are ways to cut down on your costs ways like make 50% of the items you need buy the others. So you wont reach level 180 manufacture/potion/ we in a year. oh well master craftsmen dont step out of school then work for a year and then get to be the best in the world. It takes time patience and working with what they have got.

 

This whole debate has come up a million (/slight exageration) times before and everytime the same solutions get put forward, a few times they were acted upon, and then a day a week a month later things have progressed back to how they were before hand.

 

As in buisness if a style of play isnt working you have to adjust your stratergy to compensate for it. it's easier for one person or group of people to change than it is to change the entire world.

[Gilrain]

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 ),

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

Very well said.

 

Bots buy and sell at "you must be desperate" prices, folk. 95% of the time, this will be the case.

 

*sigh*

sorry to say that, but you both seem to refuse to accept the very basics of economy.

An offer is NOT a price.

I can offer to buy EFE for 1k gc as long as i want to, that doesnt influence the market price at all. I will just end up getting no EFE at all.

And a market is not interested in opinions of what a price *should* be. Nor the buyer nor the seller.

Bots and players dont differ much in EL economy. The bots have 2 advantages over players, namely that they are there anytime and that you can easily get their pricelists in the game. Those advantages reduce cost of opportunity and thus it is normal, that they can get a slightly better price when they buy items.

 

but that has all been said already....

 

EDIT: btw players have also an advantage over bots, they can store trade.

Therefor the advantage for players is when you trade millions of harvestables. Thats why noone sells diamonds to Harvy btw.

Edited January 25, 2009 by Gilrain

[nathanstenzel]

Umm no offence here, but it doesnt matter how much you can sell a leather helm for no one will buy them. The only players to use leather helms are newbies (who generally dont have loads of gc to spend), and then only for a very short ammount of time. As soon as its possible they move on to iron helms and then onto crowns or possibly but rarely steel/ti helms.

<CLIP>

The same goes for everything ingame. Some items by deffinition should be expensive others shouldnt. It is us the players that set these prices.

<CLIP>

As in buisness if a style of play isnt working you have to adjust your stratergy to compensate for it. it's easier for one person or group of people to change than it is to change the entire world.

That is another thing that needs to be fixed. People in this game are too concerned with getting gc for items. People should try to barter. Tell a newb he can give you 15 sulfur for a leather helm or 18 sulfur for a pair of gloves and he is more likely to give you those for the goods than he is to give you gc. This same sort of thing works with the big league items too. People may not always have GC, but they will often have something else they don't need.

 

Barter and Haggle some, folk! If they still don't wanna respect your profit margin, flip'em the bird.

[Shujral]

but it sooo much easier to have money. Theres a reason why the entire modernized world uses a currency system instead of a barter system.

[nathanstenzel]

but it sooo much easier to have money. Theres a reason why the entire modernized world uses a currency system instead of a barter system.

 

Yes, it can be easier to Use money. It is harder to Get. If they don't Have money, they might Have some other item you could find Useful. I was suggesting a More Flexible was of excepting payment.

 

Heh. On another note, I just found out that there are monster dropping wolfram bars, hydro bars and perhaps finished high level goods. That can't be good for the economy either. I don't understand how it could make sense. Why would a monster have something it would not use? Items that are lower on the mix chain would be a better idea. Serpent stones, gc or something shiny. Platinum coins even.

 

Here is an idea. Instead of having monsters drop such rare man made things, make them drop furs and have towns and cities pay for those furs and heal you up in exchange for keeping their cities safe.

Edited January 25, 2009 by nathanstenzel

[Cruella]

On another note, I just found out that there are monster dropping wolfram bars, hydro bars and perhaps finished high level goods. That can't be good for the economy either. I don't understand how it could make sense. Why would a monster have something it would not use? Items that are lower on the mix chain would be a better idea. Serpent stones, gc or something shiny. Platinum coins even.

 

Here is an idea. Instead of having monsters drop such rare man made things, make them drop furs and have towns and cities pay for those furs and heal you up in exchange for keeping their cities safe.

 

A drop rate of these is so low that it does not have any impact on economy whatsoever.

 

I agree however that I'd prefer to see monsters drop more rare ingredients (various stones for instance) and gold instead of anything that can be produced by players or bought from npc's.

[Zamirah]

On another note, I just found out that there are monster dropping wolfram bars, hydro bars and perhaps finished high level goods. That can't be good for the economy either. I don't understand how it could make sense. Why would a monster have something it would not use? Items that are lower on the mix chain would be a better idea. Serpent stones, gc or something shiny. Platinum coins even.

 

Here is an idea. Instead of having monsters drop such rare man made things, make them drop furs and have towns and cities pay for those furs and heal you up in exchange for keeping their cities safe.

 

A drop rate of these is so low that it does not have any impact on economy whatsoever.

 

I agree however that I'd prefer to see monsters drop more rare ingredients (various stones for instance) and gold instead of anything that can be produced by players or bought from npc's.

As far as I know is it only wolfram bars now, they dropped hydro bars and I think it was steel cuisses long time ago but they got removed.

[Burn]

Heh. On another note, I just found out that there are monster dropping wolfram bars, hydro bars and perhaps finished high level goods. That can't be good for the economy either. I don't understand how it could make sense.

 

There's two different situations here, actually.

 

One is things like tit long swords, which are dropped frequently. The market price of items like this is now so low that manufacturing one would be a serious waste. (In this case, summoners have a use for them besides fighting, and can use plenty of them, price going up would be a big hurt on them. Is that the fault of the drops, or the ings needed to make one?)

 

S2Es get frequently dropped as well. Though not enough to reduce the price of them, nor to stop people from making tons of them. Their use for hydro mining keeps the price up. One of those rare cases where how many of a manu'ed item in-game doesn't seem to cause a price drop.

 

Assuming wolf/hydro bars are still dropped, there's obviously such a rareness in these cases that it doesn't matter, it's a nice treat for the person fighting, but end result on the economy is nill. Easily seen by checking the market price on those bars, which pretty much holds steady. I don't think anything that drops this rare is going to have any kind of effect on the economy, just a minor "yippee!" factor for the person who got the drop.

[nathanstenzel]

<CLIP>

Assuming wolf/hydro bars are still dropped, there's obviously such a rareness in these cases that it doesn't matter, it's a nice treat for the person fighting, but end result on the economy is nill. Easily seen by checking the market price on those bars, which pretty much holds steady. I don't think anything that drops this rare is going to have any kind of effect on the economy, just a minor "yippee!" factor for the person who got the drop.

About the bar drops, if they are that rare and as long as the people who get those drops do not try and consider it a "free" item and neglect to charge full price for their finished goods, I guess it should not be a problem. If they do undercharge the the goods because they got it "for free" (when it was actually alot of killing that they had to do for it), then they will mess things up. Just one person selling something too low and someone says "but I can get it for this much" and a bunch of people believe them.

 

As for the ti long, if those are really a summoning ingredient, then the formula would need to be adjusted for either the summoning if the drop is replaced/reduced or for the manufacturing if the drop is not adjusted. Once more, charging full price in either situation is important to avoid a chain reaction.

[Shadeslayer]

On another note, I just found out that there are monster dropping wolfram bars, hydro bars and perhaps finished high level goods. That can't be good for the economy either. I don't understand how it could make sense. Why would a monster have something it would not use? Items that are lower on the mix chain would be a better idea. Serpent stones, gc or something shiny. Platinum coins even.

 

Here is an idea. Instead of having monsters drop such rare man made things, make them drop furs and have towns and cities pay for those furs and heal you up in exchange for keeping their cities safe.

 

A drop rate of these is so low that it does not have any impact on economy whatsoever.

 

I agree however that I'd prefer to see monsters drop more rare ingredients (various stones for instance) and gold instead of anything that can be produced by players or bought from npc's.

As far as I know is it only wolfram bars now, they dropped hydro bars and I think it was steel cuisses long time ago but they got removed.

ACW drop hydro bars now

[nathanstenzel]

ACW drop hydro bars now

That is what I heard. I find it disturbing.

[Khalai]

ACW drop hydro bars now

That is what I heard. I find it disturbing.

 

Consider it reward for killing such a hard beast. And hydrobars do not suffer from overproduction either, so what's the big deal anyway?

[Ambrosius]

ACW drop hydro bars now

That is what I heard. I find it disturbing.

 

You might find it disturing, but the reality is that ACW have been dropping them for a long time now without it effecting marketprices. A hydro drop is rare and most dropped hydrobars are used by that same person to try and get a nexus or sold to another player or bot for the normal market price. Why would a player sell for less? Its a rare drop and those bars are in high demand.

 

Same for wolfbars that are a rare drop from Yeti. Those are usually sold to another player or a bot aswell. Also for the normal market price.

 

Even if a player would sell a dropped hydro/wolf bar for much lower then the market price it would still not have an infuence on the market as a whole. That player has only one for sale and will most likely not have another one for some time. Effect on market is nill.

 

The effect your worrying about has happend in the past tho. Wolf bars used to be a common yeti drop. A lot of bars were comming ingame that way. Prices were 7-9k for a bar back then. But since the drop rate of those bars has been reduced drasticly prices went back to normal.

[nathanstenzel]

ACW drop hydro bars now

That is what I heard. I find it disturbing.

 

Consider it reward for killing such a hard beast. And hydrobars do not suffer from overproduction either, so what's the big deal anyway?

Just the concern about the possibility of a fighter selling a finished good for cheaper and then someone quoting them on the price later on. Some people make a point of finding the lowest price they can find and saying they could get it for that price even if there are none of that item available for that price anymore. People like that and then people believing them is one of the problems with the economy. I don't want people like that to have any more ammo than they normally do.

[nathanstenzel]

but it sooo much easier to have money. Theres a reason why the entire modernized world uses a currency system instead of a barter system.

By the way, Shujral, I have another example of why barter should not be forgotten in EL business deals.

 

I recently accepted 24K and a titanium chainmail for an iron plate set when I had previously heard someone claim the iron plate sets were 24K on the market and I knew better. The person was looking for over an hour with nobody selling for that price. Why keep something you don't want anymore when you can trade it and something else for what you need? No reason at all. The EFE for this were recieved at 6.5K-7K, so I did make a profit on the business deal, even if it was a small one. Later, someone will trade me some items for the ti chain, I am sure and I will get more profit since the ti chain was calculated as 5K for the trade and EFE is an ingredient.

[gilhad123]

Quite a number of items are at this point now, and it's making some items become close to impossible to get hold of. Alembics and vial molds for example are in an all-time low, people begging at all times of the day every day for one or the other. EFE cost (and apparent rarity) has less people willing to make them. Since they break relatively easy, a constant supply of those two items is needed, but that supply has dried up.

I would say, that if Vial mold cost less, than the ings, so nobody makes it for sell

AND if people are begging for Vial molds

THEN why not to sell it at the price of ings+profit?

 

I would do it, should i be able to make the molds reliably (i made one for me, with blessing and lot of luck, so maybe in 2-3 months?).

 

If there is somebody begging for Vial Mold and on the market is only the mine at cost of ings+profit, then he can agree on my price or i will sell to somebody else, wiser

I do not see, how he could force me to sell UNDER price, when there is nowhere else to buy such item? Stating, that some bot wanted to buy it cheaper? And what? Go and try to convice the bot to sell you at the price the bot wants buy item the bot does not have. Good luck with it.

 

(And yes, i did similar to some ppl before, only on lower items. I sold them later with profit. I am not so desperate, that i will fear starving to death - anytime i can go harv vegetables for free ...)

Edited January 29, 2009 by gilhad123

[nathanstenzel]

<CLIP>

If there is somebody begging for Vial Mold and on the market is only the mine at cost of ings+profit, then he can agree on my price or i will sell to somebody else, wiser

<CLIP>

(And yes, i did similar to some ppl before, only on lower items. I sold them later with profit. I am not so desperate, that i will fear starving to death - anytime i can go harv vegetables for free ...)

Indeed. You should never be afraid to ask more than market price. If paying more gc than market price is not acceptable to them, ask them what items they can provide to make up the difference. One man's junk is another man's treasure and people view prices of different things differently too.

[Elf_Ninja]

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.

 

 

1 in 2000? I think your sampling is small. I've made many(many[many]) vials. Yes before astro was introduced I had an even better break rate say 1 in 6000 or even better. And I didn't pay attention to astro at first but if you do(if your not skeptic) as I have started to my break rates are going back down. What does that mean for your figures? way off, I got to where I could actually under sell the NPC on vials and still make a profit. 15gc for a vial is a joke, and the only reason I stopped doing vials is I got sick of them lol.

 

IMO EL economy is doing ok. Players really are free to ask what they want for an item they make or buy or as I prefer trade for something other then gc. Raw materials for me are 95% of the time better then gc. It's not about the money for me as much as the XP I can gain. And rare items are just that hard to find, at times I have many other times I have none I just adjust my strategy and wait till I can get some again. Raw materials in bulk are a must for this game, whether that be hours of monster spawns or hours at the silver mine. As time goes on things get adjusted and tweaked to make it better, when(if) cities come about I'm sure higher lvl players will love it as out for the gc they have and new/lower lvl players will go about their business and possibly dream of attempting to attain the prestige of being apart of a city someday.

 

As a side note someone a few pages back I think mentioned paying to keep a rank with a god. I think having a somewhat stable lvl is nice but WOULD pay in items on a monthly or set time period to a god say rings for crafting or swords for manu etc. to attain a higher god lvl that would allow more xp. It might be another out for high lvls of items needed for lvling or possibly rare items could be asked for as well if one got too out of hand. So in theory god quests as they stand would still be in place but if a patron would like to advance in worship and stay "active" in there god's eyes they could donate goods to gain more xp or another added bonus of some sort say less fail/add lvl in skill for a amount of time ie: 1 el week or 1 el month etc. I think that would be a nice added aspect to the EL roleplay/gods that would have positive effect.

[eliguttman]

i feel that the what keeps RL economy in check (not that its in check right now) is the system of supply and demand. but in EL many items have a moderate demand but all items have a limitless supply, all you have to do is harv the ingredients. with so many items flooding the market it makes items for the most part worthless. i think that the way there is a limit of harving experience (120/hour) that maybe there should be a limit to the amount of items harved per hour that way it could slow down and limit the supply therefore raising the demand which would make items worth something again.

 

~Eli

[dawench]

i feel that the what keeps RL economy in check (not that its in check right now) is the system of supply and demand. but in EL many items have a moderate demand but all items have a limitless supply, all you have to do is harv the ingredients. with so many items flooding the market it makes items for the most part worthless. i think that the way there is a limit of harving experience (120/hour) that maybe there should be a limit to the amount of items harved per hour that way it could slow down and limit the supply therefore raising the demand which would make items worth something again.

 

~Eli

 

 

There are plenty of ppl in this game who would freak out if harvestables were limited (myself included). Lots of people like doing "projects". Making thousands of an ess or hundreds of rings etc. (btw I do that for my own personal use not for gc). For that we need large quantities of harvestables. If we can't harvest what we need/want when we need/want it then we can't mix. Then what do we do?? Believe it or not there are ppl in EL who rarely train a/d (if ever).

 

As to pkers not making a living just from pk.. that's nonsense. There is more than one pker who makes a "living" off selling the drops from the players they kill. Some have even been known to ransom dbs.

 

The idea that the shops buying flowers don't serve a useful purpose to the economy is obviously that of someone who forgets what it's like to be a newb. Face it... without the votd flower shop most newbs would quit for lack of buying power. And whether you leets like it or not this game needs new newbs on a regular basis. A) it potentially funds Ent which makes this game continue without newbs eventually everyone would be a leet and have all the best gear and then what??? we stand around deciding who pwns who?

 

Do I like the prices that the bots buy and sell at?? Hell no. But then again the bot owners paid rl money for the priviledge of having a bot. Don't like a bots prices.. look elsewhere.

 

The idea of ppl striking to get better prices for their made goods won't work. There will always be a "scab" waiting for the opportunity to fill the supply void... just like in rl.

 

People seriously need to quit griping and apply themselves and try earning gc the old fashioned way... work for it. Harving ings is always cheaper than paying for them and there are npcs who buy things that players won't.

 

And for those who complain that Ent is controlling the economy.. so what if he is. It's his game afterall.

[eliguttman]

well than maybe a good idea would be to make npc's more like a bot. meaning that they can only buy with the money they've made from selling . or maybe supply the npc's with half of the money that they would need (on average) and let them buy all other items with money they have made from selling.

 

~Eli

[Pyewacket]

You want a real solution to the "mixers sell for too cheap and dont make a profit from they skillzorz" debate?

 

Simple, it isnt strikes, it isnt increasing gc income into teh game, it takes just a few or maybe even one person to bite teh bullet...

 

Offer to buy your next item on channel 3 at 150% of the current cost. Yeah I know..sounds daft right? But you go ahead and build up a load of gc, then spend teh lot on half the stuff u could buy it for at *current* prices and watch what happens when people suddenly think there has been a price increase for those items...

 

Sure, some people will still sell for less, but they'll not last long at teh cheaper price if everyone suddenly thinks theyre losing out when people ARE buying for more. Crazy as this actually sounds, it would work. It just needs someone with teh sheer balls AND the gc to do it and get teh ball rolling.

 

Yeah riiiight....not gonna happen is it? hmmmm?

[Dilly]

You want a real solution to the "mixers sell for too cheap and dont make a profit from they skillzorz" debate?

 

Simple, it isnt strikes, it isnt increasing gc income into teh game, it takes just a few or maybe even one person to bite teh bullet...

 

Offer to buy your next item on channel 3 at 150% of the current cost. Yeah I know..sounds daft right? But you go ahead and build up a load of gc, then spend teh lot on half the stuff u could buy it for at *current* prices and watch what happens when people suddenly think there has been a price increase for those items...

 

Sure, some people will still sell for less, but they'll not last long at teh cheaper price if everyone suddenly thinks theyre losing out when people ARE buying for more. Crazy as this actually sounds, it would work. It just needs someone with teh sheer balls AND the gc to do it and get teh ball rolling.

 

Yeah riiiight....not gonna happen is it? hmmmm?

 

Actually... it's EXACTLY what happened to rostos.. and it's exactly what happens with the orangespammy armors atm.