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What you're proposing is to have all recipes (and every other item) in the game available for a set price without a supplier needed.....as if perhaps Statesman runs BM Farm all day and will sell at those prices or something. This would immediately make inf worth a lot more because with the deflation it would cause it would allow people with large piles of inf to put max-builds on more toons. Despite the fact that this would make me have much more purchasing power immediately and going forward, I see 0% chance for the devs agreeing. They have set the drop rates for ultra-rare (check the meaning of that sometime) drops somewhere between 2500 kills and 4000 kills for purples and something equally ridiculous for PvPs (200-400 kills with a 5 min cooldown on each target).|
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
Oh, and prequel to the ideas hinted at before when I said I would be writing the devs. (Begging for insults, I know) Here goes. How about the Market has a "Buy it Now" option on everything. Every single item, salvage, recipe (maybe not crafted enhancers?), wings, etc. Have enhancers be 2x what is found at the stores. Have salvage be a % above what they are bought back by the stores, Maybe 100x?, so 250 common salvage is Buy it Now at 25000 at market. Recipes, depending on type, up to 500 Mil Buy it now PvP, 250 Mil Purp, 200 Mil Global/Proc, 125 Mil Fancy recipe, and 50 Mil common recipe, or some such. In this way the Devs can control the Market price, by simply saying, "it is stupid to pay more than X amount for something, equivalent to approx X hours at 50 content, and our more average players will not be ripped off by market griefers, so we protect our game/investment by protecting the bulk of our players from the few "I wanna be Enron" types every game accumulates. It would also still keep the market active in the areas under the cap, lots of Purps sell below 250, same PvP. Lots of common salvage sells for below 25k, so the market would still be viable, just capped by common sense tops the Devs institute. Okay, let me have it (especially you Enron-types). But seriously, any thoughtful feedback on this? Thanks. |
They JUST added a new way to get these items with alignment merits although the purples and PvP IOs are extraordinarily expensive under this new method.
Given that they set the drop rates very high AND recently made an alternate way to get them which is also a significant grind, why do you think they'll suddenly change their minds?
I have seen that logic hasn't convinced you of anything in this thread as of yet. And I'm quite sure you'll continue to believe that marketeers are "stealing" inf from players rather than charging a fee to the BUY IT NAO! crowd for the convenience of knowing that most items will be in stock. But you have to see that the devs have clearly made their intentions to PvP and Purple IO recipes rarity clear.......they want them ultra-rare.
Other MMOs have significantly worse grinds AND require the top gear to do some content. Going forward with incarnates I think CoX will look more like those other games rather than even easier to get the best stuff.
Good Luck with your letter though, all it could do is make me effectively richer.
E.E.
P.S. Enron had nothing to do with manipulating the stock market...excepting the price of own stock which they used to cross-collteralize their off-balance sheet debt which by the very nature of being off-balance sheet increased their share price. If you want to toss around smarmy comments at people using hot-buttons, at least learn about the hot-button words you're tossing around first.
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They already have this with merits and tickets.|
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
Here goes. How about the Market has a "Buy it Now" option on everything. Every single item, salvage, recipe (maybe not crafted enhancers?), wings, etc. Have enhancers be 2x what is found at the stores. Have salvage be a % above what they are bought back by the stores, Maybe 100x?, so 250 common salvage is Buy it Now at 25000 at market. Recipes, depending on type, up to 500 Mil Buy it now PvP, 250 Mil Purp, 200 Mil Global/Proc, 125 Mil Fancy recipe, and 50 Mil common recipe, or some such.
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If they added one with inf... Well, obviously, it'd cap prices at those values. Mostly it would mean a LOT more people would get these things, because if you set the prices low enough that they matter, you're setting them way below the market value. So you get a ton of people buying at those prices.
I'd guess it'd be a very effective inf dump, but I don't think it would help.
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| In this way the Devs can control the Market price, by simply saying, "it is stupid to pay more than X amount for something, equivalent to approx X hours at 50 content, and our more average players will not be ripped off by market griefers, so we protect our game/investment by protecting the bulk of our players from the few "I wanna be Enron" types every game accumulates. |
Heck, look at A-merits. The devs just took action to INCREASE the cost of purples. Increase. They wanted purples, and PvP IOs, to cost more.
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| It would also still keep the market active in the areas under the cap, |
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| Lots of common salvage sells for below 25k, so the market would still be viable, just capped by common sense tops the Devs institute. |
See, for real markets, this idea is fully into pants-on-head territory. We know what happens when people set "common sense" price caps on food; they have devastating shortages and people starve.
But in this case, the "price cap" is implemented by creating more supply. You're not limiting what people can charge for the existing supply, but rather, providing more, such that there is always enough supply to meet whatever the demand would be at the cap. There might be more supply, but there can never be less.
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| Okay, let me have it (especially you Enron-types). But seriously, any thoughtful feedback on this? Thanks. |
Basically, the problem here is that your "common sense" prices have nothing to do with what things are worth; they're just arbitrary limits pulled out of the air.
Furthermore, we have compelling evidence that your "common sense" prices are much lower than the prices the devs want to see for things.
The devs can read this forum. They watch the marketplace. They know what things sell for. They know how many alchemical silvers drop, how many are sold, how many are deleted. If they felt alchemical silver was overpriced, they would increase the drop rate.
The intention of the system is that people can't just automatically have something at a low price. (And empirically, the prices you are advocating must be far lower than market value, or you wouldn't really be proposing the feature.) It is that people who get something and people who want something can make deals which are mutually satisfactory... and that is exactly what the current system offers.
The devs have offered additional ways to purchase specific things, such as recipes or arcane salvage. The prices they've placed on those are non-trivial, such that people would often prefer to use the market. That suggests that, in effect, they've already imposed those caps -- only they've imposed them in alternative formats, such as a-merits and reward merits and tickets. But you can still quickly figure out what those are worth, and whether you'd rather spend them or buy something with inf.
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Do you have an actual example of this in real life? Or is this Glen Beck in disguise?
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Originally Posted by seebs
They already have this with merits and tickets.
See, for real markets, this idea is fully into pants-on-head territory. We know what happens when people set "common sense" price caps on food; they have devastating shortages and people starve. |
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Recently? Venezuela springs to mind.
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Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
Do you have an actual example of this in real life? Or is this Glen Beck in disguise?
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Yeah, I used to live in China. Food was guaranteed to be cheap, but they could run out, and they couldn't get more -- because getting more would cost more than food could be sold for. So you'd go to the store and there'd be a large empty display with prices marked. Wonderful prices, extremely affordable.|
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
Do you have an actual example of this in real life?
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It's basic economics. If it costs more to produce more X than you can make selling X, you won't produce more X. If that means there's not enough X, you end up with rationing or you just plain don't have enough to go around.
When prices match the intersection of supply and demand, there's enough stuff. If you price things above that point, you have excess supply -- say, look at the US housing market right now. There's a ton of condos and the like near us that are empty because they cost more than people are willing to pay. If you price things below that point, you run out -- say, look at special sale items.
Ever go to a store, see that something is discounted, and note that there's none of it on the shelf? The price was below the supply/demand intersection, they sold out. If it had been food, there would be no food to be had. (Or at least, none of that specific food.)
Ever go to the WW market, and look at the last N transactions on the really valuable PvP IOs? There usually aren't any. There aren't any because they are worth more than 2B inf, thus, no one is going to sell them at that price or lower.
The difference with the game is just that the developers can create as many of a given recipe as they want. Same with anything else; you can just create mu vestments or whatever. As a result, there's no problem with running out of supply in terms of things the developers do.
However, the fact remains: The developers have complete statistics on what sells, and how many of them there are. They also control the drop rates of everything in the game. Their response to the previous state of the market was to introduce a pricing scheme in which purples are driven towards costing at least ten times as much as the best orange procs. (If they cost any less, it is more efficient to use a-merits to buy the orange procs, sell those, and buy the purples with the resulting inf.)
Similarly, they've put in AE ticket purchases of salvage and recipes, and reward merit purchases of recipes, in order to create a way for people to bypass the market if they want to -- and the costs they've picked reflect their feeling on how valuable these things should be.
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Not quite starvation causing but a recent example from Venezuela:|
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
Do you have an actual example of this in real life? Or is this Glen Beck in disguise?
|
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4599260.stm
A minimum price on raw coffee beans and a price cap on coffee sold at retail meant that the roasters no longer made enough profit to make it worth operating. This is a slightly unusual case in that there was a price cap on the final output and a price floor on the raw materials so it was the middleman getting squeezed rather than the raw producers but I think it still illustrates the basic point. When price caps drop below the market value of a good the suppliers stop or reduce the quantity supplied to the market and since the quantity demanded goes up not everyone who wants it can buy it at the market price.
There have been examples which did cause starvation but I can't recall them off the top of my head. Someone with a better knowledge of history than me might be able to help you.
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So it seems your questions have all been addressed, Blue, and now you just seem to be picking nits. Yes there are Real Life examples of this very thing. Does this impact your argument in any way? |
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
Do you have an actual example of this in real life? Or is this Glen Beck in disguise?
|
By the way, the wiki on this subject explains well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
Have you come to understand that what you ask is not feasible, useful, or works the way that you seem to think it does? Your responses until now, with a few exceptions, seem to indicate that you have either not read any of the responses you've received, or you have chosen to ignore them. Give us a hint.
Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued
"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
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Originally Posted by Emberly
Recently? Venezuela springs to mind.
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Cuba
City of Heroes was my first MMO, & my favorite computer game.
R.I.P.
Chyll - Bydand - Violynce - Enyrgos - Rylle - Nephryte - Solyd - Fettyr - Hyposhock - Styrling - Beryllos - Rosyc
Horryd - Myriam - Dysquiet - Ghyr
Vanysh - Eldrytch
Inflyct - Mysron - Orphyn - Dysmay - Reapyr - - Wyldeman - Hydeous
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Wait, but everything's FREE in Cuba! O wait...|
Originally Posted by Chyll
Cuba
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Fidel Castro Admits the Cuban Economic Model is a Failure
Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued
"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/his1e.htm
Lenin's last promise of bread was the hardest to deliver. The Provisional Government, barely more literate in economics than Lenin, had imposed a price ceiling on food, resulting, as any "bourgeois" economist could have told them, in severe shortages of food in the cities. Arguably this hurt the Provisional Government as much as its failure to sign a separate peace with the Germans; for the price ceiling angered both peasants, forced to sell their grain for a pittance, and workers, unable to obtain food at any price. Lenin merely intensified the brutality of enforcement of the price controls on food; rather than starve in the cities, large percentages of the urban population returned to their family farms in the country. (In the end, even this desperate move would not save many of them from starvation).
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Who exactly is supplying the quantities of these items in the market? The game already supplies the stock in regular stores, merit, AE and Alignment vendors. You don't have to buy from the market.|
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
How about the Market has a "Buy it Now" option on everything. Every single item, salvage, recipe (maybe not crafted enhancers?), wings, etc. Have enhancers be 2x what is found at the stores. Have salvage be a % above what they are bought back by the stores, Maybe 100x?, so 250 common salvage is Buy it Now at 25000 at market. Recipes, depending on type, up to 500 Mil Buy it now PvP, 250 Mil Purp, 200 Mil Global/Proc, 125 Mil Fancy
recipe, and 50 Mil common recipe, or some such. In this way the Devs can control the Market price |
If I had a super rare item that I would want to sell, I would want the most for it. If the market limits what I can get for it, say 500 mil, there is no reason for me to use the market. I will post in the forums or broadcast in game for my price. Infamy transfer will be via Trade or email. If I want to sell it for 2 bill, either pay my price or look for someone else willing to sell it for less.
Why in the world would I ask for so much? Say I got the rare recipe by exchanging alignment merits. That's a lot of work hunting for tips and doing the tips. I'd like to be compensated for my efforts, so I set the price for my work.
Players supply the market, not the devs. If folks can't sell it for what they want, they will not use the market. If players don't supply the market with rares, then you end up with 0 things to buy. The market is a middleman for other players in the game. That's who you're buying from and not the game itself. If you don't want to buy from other players, then get it from merits or Alignment vendors.
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Originally Posted by galadiman
Wait, but everything's FREE in Cuba! O wait...
Fidel Castro Admits the Cuban Economic Model is a Failure |
Add to that the former Soviet Union. In both cases the black market for basic foodstuffs, includes staples, was as (or more) active than the approved distribution network.
edit: and I see all_hell actually put a specific historical note in related to the USSR. nice.
City of Heroes was my first MMO, & my favorite computer game.
R.I.P.
Chyll - Bydand - Violynce - Enyrgos - Rylle - Nephryte - Solyd - Fettyr - Hyposhock - Styrling - Beryllos - Rosyc
Horryd - Myriam - Dysquiet - Ghyr
Vanysh - Eldrytch
Inflyct - Mysron - Orphyn - Dysmay - Reapyr - - Wyldeman - Hydeous
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I think he is basically proposing an Inf store for all items (even if he's not actually phrasing it that way). Essentially it sets a soft cap on market prices since above that price there is no point in buying it versus going to the store.
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Originally Posted by crayhal
Who exactly is supplying the quantities of these items in the market? The game already supplies the stock in regular stores, merit, AE and Alignment vendors. You don't have to buy from the market.
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You can also add the California Energy crisis from the Enron days. My friend worked at Souther California Edison during that time. And there was a limit on what they could charge home customers for electricity, but not on what generators could bill them. So they were paying more than they could get back.
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
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He's proposing exactly that - basically, that similar to Common Recipes, everything else is available for a "list price".|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
I think he is basically proposing an Inf store for all items (even if he's not actually phrasing it that way). Essentially it sets a soft cap on market prices since above that price there is no point in buying it versus going to the store.
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I can see an argument for this with regards to Common salvage (not an argument I personally agree with, but I can see the argument).
Anything else that's available for a "list price" is no longer either "uncommon" or "rare", or "very rare". It's just "expensive".
/unsigned
I'm not sure that the inf store is in theory worse than the merit store, the ticket store, or the a-merit store.
Except for one detail: You can trade inf, but not any of the others.
Here's the thing. If you created such a thing, there'd still be room for marketeers to make money under those prices (and if there weren't, a whole lot of the basis for player interaction would be gone). And this would end up meaning that marketeers could purple their warshades even more casually.
I've been playing... four months, I think. A friend of mine has been playing for something like five years. I have about as much inf as he does. To be fair, he's got a lot more purples, but... Even casual playing of the market generates inf at a ludicrous rate. Even at prices far below those that BC is proposing.
Anyway, all the real-world examples of price caps creating shortages are largely irrelevant to his proposal. (That said, the in-game supply of PvP IOs on the market, where there's a price cap, pretty much tells you all you need to know.) His proposal implies using a cornucopia that really can create an infinite supply of desired items at no measurable cost, such that it won't go broke or run out no matter how many you buy.
Also.
While it's plausible to say that this ought to create a price cap, I do not believe it would.
In another game which I used to play, you could buy ammunition from vendors. And you could buy better ammunition from players. Players crafted ammunition and sold it for a relative pittance, but they made money.
You regularly saw people auctioning stacks of vendor-bought ammo at a 400% or more markup. And it sold. This is stuff you could buy from vendors anywhere you went in the game, while it took more effort to reach an auction house -- and every auction house was located somewhere that you could buy vendor ammo.
The problem with the market is not, and has never been, the sellers.
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So does dousing my gonads in kerosene. It's a tossup which is less pleasant in the end.|
Originally Posted by greatgarloo
But marketeering takes very little time.
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But I don't know why that is important anyway. His argument was that "the game is about grouping, so being powerful with IOs isn't important", to which I say "if the game is really about grouping, why is grouping the least efficient way for advancing."
It's not like rewarding grouping is difficult. It looks like they are going to do it with the incarnate system - since you need specific salvage dropped only from specific TFs in order to craft them and much of it will be no-trade. The first people with their tier 4 alpha enhancements won't be market billionaires and they won't be the people who can clear a farm the fastest while solo. For a game built on grouping that seems a tad better design than what we currently have with IO enhancements.
Hmm. I would say that reward merits certainly favor grouping -- TFs yield more than soloing, so far as I can tell. A-merits, I'm not as sure; tips are pretty soloable.
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Exactly a store. Prices set by the Devs
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Originally Posted by SwellGuy
And besides every item is available for purchase by prices set by the devs in reward merits, and/or hero merits or villain merits.
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@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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Enron also messed with the pricing of electricity on the power grid, causing brownouts, forcing power companies to have rolling blackouts in California, and caused the price of electricity to skyrocket.|
Originally Posted by Enyalios
P.S. Enron had nothing to do with manipulating the stock market...excepting the price of own stock which they used to cross-collteralize their off-balance sheet debt which by the very nature of being off-balance sheet increased their share price. If you want to toss around smarmy comments at people using hot-buttons, at least learn about the hot-button words you're tossing around first.
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That was market manipulation at its worst, but everyone has forgotten about that and only remembers the stock market angle.
*reads Centurion's latest posts*
What the fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
Okay, you win.
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
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I did this at Wentworth's just today
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Originally Posted by Rodion
Enron also messed with the pricing of electricity on the power grid, causing brownouts, forcing power companies to have rolling blackouts in California, and caused the price of electricity to skyrocket.
That was market manipulation at its worst, but everyone has forgotten about that and only remembers the stock market angle. |
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I remember the electricity manipulation part. I doubt thats what BC was talking about. Anyhows, the problem in California was because you had aspects of the free market (wholesale suppliers could charge whatever) and aspects of price caps/regulation (the energy companies had price caps). So if thats what he was talking about I'm not sure how his example helps his arguement. Just for the record I support fully regulated utilities because there is more value added from economies of scale and non-overlap of universally used services like these than competition can overcome. No state or country has seen consumer prices drop from deregulating utilities yet and I don't suppose they will anytime soon.|
Originally Posted by Rodion
Enron also messed with the pricing of electricity on the power grid, causing brownouts, forcing power companies to have rolling blackouts in California, and caused the price of electricity to skyrocket.
That was market manipulation at its worst, but everyone has forgotten about that and only remembers the stock market angle. |
E.E.
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If you want capped prices, that is a relatively sane way to implement them.|
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
Here goes. How about the Market has a "Buy it Now" option on everything. Every single item, salvage, recipe (maybe not crafted enhancers?), wings, etc.
[snip] Lots of common salvage sells for below 25k, so the market would still be viable, just capped by common sense tops the Devs institute. |
However, given that the devs have already, and recently, told us via A-merits the value they place on purple and PVP recipes, I don't think you're going to get a very sympathetic hearing. If they wanted to significantly increase the supply of high-end IOs to reduce prices, they could've done it then. They didn't. So...well, good luck with that, really.
Honestly, if you want cheaper purples and PVP IOs, then you'd probably be better off simply campaigning for cheaper A-merit prices or a significant increase in the drop rate. Because what you're asking for here, effectively, is an increased drop rate, only with the added development burden of writing all the code to support your buy it nao system.
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from what I can tell, here's the gist of what he was saying:
B_C, you're still laboring under the misapprehension that marketeers can drive up prices above what buyers are willing to pay. It just doesn't work like that. If it did work that way, it would be even easier to make butt-tons of inf
Since no marketeer can control the supply in a meaningful way, the trick as a marketeer is to sell for as little as possible and still generate a profit. Whenever a seller prices his items to high, someone comes along and undercuts him.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.