Player Vendors - high rent slow sales

[Rowina]

I dont know if you all noticed but the community is changing. As a permanent player vendor owner I am feeling that the market is becoming very slow. Maybe more people are becoming more self sufficient or using different skills but in general sales are very very low. I would really like for you Citan to tell me what you think about lowering our rent during the alpha since keeping up with paying almost 8k daily and not selling a thing its a bit too much. Yes there is always the option of leaving the shop and coming back later but I would like to keep my spot at the first hall near Tadion if that is going to be possible since the game as it is still isnt launched. In regular circumstances I would understand it if you would say that I should give someone else the chance to be selling in that room but at this point with such low population it doesn't really matter where you are standing. we are all experiencing an ebb in sales

[lileth]

Thank you for posting this Rowina, I've had/seen this discussion with many in game. PG offers so many skills and areas of interest that the game itself keeps one occupied. I have retail mgmt. at 40+ on a toon and in a specialty field you spend so much time keeping your shop supplied that you don't do much else. Once I was paying close to 8k a day to keep the shop open I closed it.

I'm not sure if the high rent helps drive the high cost of products but frankly I've found it more productive to deal with individuals and see that many just sell in global chat.

I've also noticed more tables for hire this past month. I've been actively playing since around Christmas 2016. Not sure if our pop numbers are down or what else to attribute it to.

Either way, while I enjoyed being able to supply others with items they wanted the cost and time spent was interfering with my game time.

Zems Gems

[Tigerwyld]

[Content removed by srand.]


Tigerwyld, that's enough.

[Rowina]

oh my gods it's costing me 8k to be a PERMANENT vendor.. oh whine oh cry!
If it's THAT much of a horrible cost; maybe lose that super special slot you got going on... 2nd hall isn't that bad - MAYBE your sales suck because most people go straight to the 2nd hall now because the rotating vendors have a better selection and lower prices because they're not trying to maintain their rich status off of us.
I say RAISE the rent.

They should add an option to mute you here too. You cant talk like a human being can you? I am not even bothering to read your comment. You should learn from humans how they should behave with others.

[Arundel]

Hello again Rowina. I made a very similar thread requesting that the rent be removed at least during Alpha. Anyone who suggests keeping it the same as it is or raising it either has 16 hours a day to farm to make it worthwhile or has no concept of making money or how the economy has slowed down. I'm not trying to be insulting, but rather I 100% back what Rowina is saying. It's not even a discussion really, its a well known concept from economics and history of governments that if you tax people 50% of their income and they aren't insanely rich, the economy breaks. Now, when I had 12-16 hours a day to play during my vacation time and partial vacation I was making enough to justify it since I was moving a lot of items. The problem is that even if I undercut EVERYONE (which I do) and try to sell a variety of items, nothing is selling cause we have no playerbase. So this is a cyclical problem, the economy is shrinking due to the playerbase shrinking and then in turn it shrinks more because why pay 8k a day for no sales. So shops close up, we lose variety in goods we can buy, and its affecting the rest of testing in a very bad way. It's skewing the way we argue points about changes since nothing is available.

The clearest point I'd make is that its hard to justify specializing when next to nothing you need is sold at reasonable prices (because the average guy isn't going to pay 8k per day for nothing) and this in turn affects the overall discussion about ALL testing. We're not being given a reasonable environment to test in because we're taxed too heavily to do so in a reasonable way. I'm not asking for the game to be easy, we're not asking for that, we're asking to be able to test in a meaningful way. Give us 2000 players and an 8k tax isn't bad because you can reliably sell items.

As a point of reference I am not a "newb" or lazy, I have nearly all skills maxed. However, I don't play 16 hours a day anymore and work keeps me busy. I'm beginning to believe I am going to wait until Beta or later to test more since I don't think the devs are listening and nearly insist on making our testing harder than it needs to be. 2-3 small changes and we can go on and test just fine, but that can't be bothered with. And I'm not even whining but going off of direct quotes I have seen in the past few weeks about them not wanting to make changes to help us out during testing. This is fine until it begins to drastically skew testing and make everyone quit because its too hard to test such a grindy game when we aren't given a reasonable environment to do so.

[Arundel]

oh my gods it's costing me 8k to be a PERMANENT vendor.. oh whine oh cry!
If it's THAT much of a horrible cost; maybe lose that super special slot you got going on... 2nd hall isn't that bad - MAYBE your sales suck because most people go straight to the 2nd hall now because the rotating vendors have a better selection and lower prices because they're not trying to maintain their rich status off of us.
I say RAISE the rent.

You would make for the worst economist ever. That isn't opinion, its fact. Go read some basic Economics 101 textbook then post. I'm not trying to be inflammatory but these economies in many ways mimic real world economies - in fact many MMO's briefly or permanently higher someone with economics experience just because it is so necessary. If you tax everyone so much that only the busiest players can earn enough to justify selling their goods, you reduce the overall possible goods (or visible goods) that can be sold to say 10% of what it should be. The economy collapses, and you see the skeleton economy we now have.

[kazeandi]

There should be a marginal sales tax of 5% or so and the basic fees waved or calculated from how much profit the vendor saw during that week.

I agree that the whole testing environment is way more of a PITA than it should be, and that includes way more than vendors. Take class balance - there's not even a full array of skills in the game yet, if I read that correctly, and races will be added. That means many demographic, economic and combat-related changes are yet to come. And yet some skills are so hard to access that new players rather give up than go through the pain of leveling 3-4 crafting skills (and grinding all the needed resources themselves most of the time, because you can't buy much, and what you see is extremely overpriced) just to get to BC or Bard (Bard even more so than BC - very hard to get to, yet on the weak side in comparison).

But maybe all the existing content doesn't need testing anymore and it doesn't matter if anyone plays or not. Maybe only special things, like the new zone, needs targeted testing. I don't see any other reason for the fact that things don't get a bit more relaxed during Alpha.

[Greyfyn]

Admittedly I haven't read every stitch of the posts here, but I do have some insights on the Player Market.

Before the player markets, there was still an economy. People worked out things in trade, or were able to be somewhat self-sustaining with friends and guilds. And that could happen now if people don't want to set up a store. We used to have long discussions in chat about what things should cost and whether people were being fair.

I remember the day the player market opened, it was NUTS! When I opened Shot in the Dark (arrow shop) that day, I was able to sell all my hoarded arrow stacks for 10s of thousands. Citan posted a long discussion about his plans for the market and other economy infrastructure. That old forum post should be available to read on the wiki, thanks to Beta Notus. Citan was very clear about deliberately NOT wanting people to keep their shops forever because it was not fair to the player base. And I think he was right. Keeping a store in the front room because you were there first isn't really fair to all the other players.

Not only that, but the rooms were intended to be sorted by what was sold! There is an underlying economic structure here and it's designed to avoid people monopolizing that front room. [That said, there's no good reason to have the other rooms sectioned off the way they are; there doesn't need to be "second" or "third" class rooms. THAT can be changed by geographically rotating the walls.]

Understanding the design feature of increased rent, I frequently stopped having my store open. However, I have found that my basic repertoire of Arrows, Food and Floral more than pay for my store, so I've kept it open at A-10 for months. Even though I can't play as much, I still log in every day and do what is needed to keep my store fairly well maintained. I consider it a service to other players, not a complete money maker, so therefore my arrow pricing structure has not changed.

Ultimately I think the answer to this ongoing market issue is to do as I suggested and just rotate the walls so there's a central walkway and let all the player booths be visible from that hallway. There's no advantage to having one room be "Premium." Eliminate this issue with design.

As for the economy. Seriously, it's ALPHA. We don't have a player base to sustain more and we shouldn't expect that.

[Citan]

Ultimately I think the answer to this ongoing market issue is to do as I suggested and just rotate the walls so there's a central walkway and let all the player booths be visible from that hallway.


The reason the market stalls are chopped up the way they are is for occlusion culling. Basically, it's so that your framerate doesn't go even worse than it already does in there. When more optimizations are in place, I hope we can improve the layout, but we can't right now.

[Crissa]

You know what might be cool?

A directory of shops including ones that aren't open at the moment. And if they have an open time planned...

I'd check that one. Right now the vendors are kinda hard to tell apart and if they moved around any I'd never know except by inventory.

[Tigerwyld]

[Content removed by srand.]


Tigerwyld, that's enough.

[Khaylara]

I can't say I love the high prices but I usually open shops with cheap junk so once the rent goes over 3k i rarely rent till the month expires. I don't think we should have lowered rent during alpha though, retail management is a skill and since we get to keep that skill level in the next stages I think it's fair to have the same taxes.

That being said the market doesn't function properly, we all know the causes-low population, people lvl multiple crafts so they don't need to buy tools, gear or weapons. So naturally, some things don't sell or don't sell fast enough and there are days when I don't sell anything at all. Stores that sell arrows, foods, gems, other consumables work well but scrolls, gear (even good epic gear), certain limited use materials don't really.
I would have 2 suggestions to improve the current state and possibly help in the future

1. again, a search function or a board so if I need "tsavorite" I don't have to check every stall (it takes too long and my character spins like a lunatic in that area)

2. instead of rent, maybe a percentage of sales. I imagine people would dislike this but hear me out: my hope is that in the future we will be able to sell crafting products, those will be (and are already) fairly expensive and harder to sell than consumables or raw materials. So say I load my stall with gear at minimum 4 k an item, maybe today I won't pay any rent but 2morrow when I sell 3 pieces I pay 10% of 15 k (just examples, don't take them literally). On the other hand someone selling consumables/mats will sell items every day but it will even out since they sell stuff daily and I don't. Short version-everyone pays a tax based on how much they sell (to make it a bit more fair for people who sell more specialized items).

Idk if my post makes perfect sense cause I'm rather tired, sorry about that:)

[Silvonis]

The problem with changing anything temporarily specifically because we are in alpha/beta can defeat the purpose of testing as we won't get accurate data because the changed systems are operating under temporary perimeters. It can result in inaccurate conclusions.

Then an additional issue is those who become accustom to those temporary changes and those who've never known otherwise become frustrated when they change.

For example, if we temporarily lowered the fees of stalls then people will become accustom to those fees and those who never knew otherwise will become frustrated once the temporary cuts are removed. It's something that we see all the time and no, it doesn't matter if we say it's temporary because we get the same response to a lot of changes even though we are in active development and changes should be expected.

[Tagamogi]

instead of rent, maybe a percentage of sales

I'd love a percentage of sales. You make a good point about trying to sell less-frequently bought items. Also, I think the current system very much encourages selling high-priced items since no matter what you sell, the rent is going to stay the same. That makes it pretty unprofitable to run a store selling low-priced but in-demand items like rawhide sheets or empty bottles since you need to sell so many more of them to make back your rent money. Maybe the game's intent is that we just vendor those, but then that makes it less easy for people looking for those items to find them. (Plus nobody in their right mind should be vendoring rawhide sheets since they sell for less than their raw materials.)

On the other hand, if there's no increasing rent that then removes the incentive for players to stop running their store 24/7 and allow others players a chance to open a store. I don't think just raising the the tax percentage for each store rental would work for that.

[Crissa]

You're not going to get 'accurate' data if you're not willing to scale systems and effects?

If something breaks because of slow sales - it will similarly break in the opposite direction with higher sales.

[Khaylara]

Silvonis - that's true. Just to clarify though, my suggestion was not meant for alpha only, just a general thought. Things like gems, stomachs, fire dust or food will always sell better/more often than "big ticket items" that are result of specialized crafting (i.e. an amazing max enchanted fire/ice magic yellow staff). The current market system is in a way punishing for crafters (you already know that). One might argue that it's only because of the low population but in fact that will always be the case. Crafted gear for example comes with combos of skills that might be aimed at a very small group of players (I mean the combos are so many) so this kind of item will imo be always hard to sell.

[Wemedge]

I want to preface this by saying I never really used vendors to make money, most of the time mine was empty when I maxed it back when it came out. I made my fortune other ways. But as I noticed my storage was getting clogged with multiple stacks of stuff I didn't use much, I figured I would give vendors a shot to clear up some space. Guess I've had my stall a couple of weeks, and it's had it's highs and lows. My plan was to just open it on the weekends, to keep the fees down and sell when the most players were on, but the thought of losing my front room stall kept me clicking the rent button.

As for the issues being talked about here, I agree the current playerbase makes it hard to make much of a profit unless you have the time to keep the vendor fully stocked, especially at max rent. I would think some sort of sliding rent system based on average weekly population would fix some of it. 100 average weekly prime time players, max rent 2,000...500 at prime time, rent 10,000, so it could ebb and flow with the population. Now how to scale it all, or even code it, is well beyond me. Just a random thought.

I also agree some sort of search would be handy. I rarely look through vendors, being pretty self sufficient, but occasionally I'll look around to see any notus books or concoctions for something I need is around. It is quite a feeling to sift through every vendor only to find no one is selling them, something a two second search would have remedied. Not complaining, though. I'm sure something to make shopping easier will be along soon enough and I can wait.

[Arundel]

The problem with changing anything temporarily specifically because we are in alpha/beta can defeat the purpose of testing as we won't get accurate data because the changed systems are operating under temporary perimeters. It can result in inaccurate conclusions.

Then an additional issue is those who become accustom to those temporary changes and those who've never known otherwise become frustrated when they change.

For example, if we temporarily lowered the fees of stalls then people will become accustom to those fees and those who never knew otherwise will become frustrated once the temporary cuts are removed. It's something that we see all the time and no, it doesn't matter if we say it's temporary because we get the same response to a lot of changes even though we are in active development and changes should be expected.

Preface: Tone is important, and if you could hear my tone it would be flat right now. This isn't meant to sound like a tirade or aggressive, I'm just being honest that I have lost interest due to concerns about how problems are handled that I believe will reflect how they are handled post launch. This post is also long, but not everything that is short is better. I put some thought into this, so I hope you will read it. Also, I am not giving this feedback so I can make more money in game, I'm giving it because I hear this discussion too frequently and the economy is totally busted. I can make over 100,000-150,000 councils per day, playing for about 20 minutes, with zero interaction from players. This isn't a huge amount, but it funds pretty much anything I do as I only play a lot on the weekends (nearly 1 mil per week if I get one day of actual solid play works for me). My shop also isn't in the "A" room and I don't mind my location for my shop much. I'm saying this to counter any argument from naysayers that I am whining because I want to get rich. It's not that, it's that the game is all kinds of dead and I'd like to see some small changes to encourage players, and admittedly myself to some extent.

The above quote from you actually covers my point from earlier in the thread (and in others), that we are getting "inaccurate testing" because the data is so skewed by how tedious stuff is. If you read my post, I made the suggestion based on economics that we aren't seeing anything remotely like a real economy or one we can expect after launch. If you guys suspect we can have 2000+ players I'm sure you can imagine how different the economy will be. In turn, having a playerbase of 60 online (or less on average) affects our ability to make money and our dependence on ourselves for all crafts since many times you won't have someone on to help. This issue directly conflicts with your desire for us to "specialize" and depends on others and the economy to avoid needing all skills.

As an aside: Silvonis, your comments on "changing temporarily" aren't logically consistent. The devs (including you) tell us all the time that we need to "get over it because stuff changes" in nearly any facet of gameplay (paraphrasing, but I could dig up numerous quotes similar enough). I'm not understanding this logic. So if things are going to change and we may as well get used to it, let me ask two questions:

A. Why bother patching or balancing now at all? (this runs counter to your idea that you only change what you absolutely have to)

B. Do you not expect that players will be annoyed by other possible changes such as the changes to spells, skills, etc. before launch. If Timmy is going to die when he reads that the stalls will cost another 7000 councils instead of just 1000 per day (at launch), I promise that Timmy will also have a heart attack when he reads that his Fireball does half the damage that it did a few months before. Or if Timmy reads that Jim Bob's favorite skill has been buffed and may be as strong as his. Or if Jane finds her favorite dungeon has changed and isn't "just how she remembers it". These are all nearly parallel to a change in shop price and certainly many of these will change directly based on population issues and changes in game state (level cap, etc.).

The state of the game is in a constant state of flux and many of the changes are a partial reaction to the current level cap, needs, and size of the population. If something is not functional you will change it now rather than later (read your own patch notes, nearly every line is proof of this). The same goes for stall costs, the current need with a sluggish economy (dead, really) is to lower the cost to a minimum which in turn causes more shops to appear and more economic activity - which in turn fuels player actions and speeds up testing and in general gives a more realistic view of how content you make now will actually work. This is a basic principle of economics, not my opinion.

I find it hard to believe that someone complaining about the stall price going up after launch is any more inconvenient than 10,000 other changes which will occur between now and launch. The simple fact is it encourages an economy to boom rather than bust, and the fact that you guys can't realize this or refuse to change makes me highly doubt your ability to design a functional economy. I am hoping this doesn't come across as an attack, but an observation based on how you respond to requested changes. This issue is highly concerning to me, because I believe it reflects on how you will run the economy post launch: slow to change, not bothering with tedium that frustrates your player base, unconcerned with basic economic principles and encouraging player sales and activity.

If your argument is that "we are testing and don't have time to change that" or "we are too busy" - lets be serious here, you will be just as busy after launch, if not more so, and your playerbase will ask for small changes like this to make the game better (not even easier, just less tedious). Your attitude towards it now does affect how you will handle things after launch - and I have seen this in countless MMO's. Also, you guys get a pass on a lot of stuff now cause it is Alpha. Your playerbase will be nothing short of brutal and far less forgiving post-launch if something tedious exists for too long. They don't even have to verbalize it, in fact most players just quit without saying a word (statistically speaking). I am sure you know some of these things, I expect that you have more experience than me with MMO's and certainly with design, but they are relevant points to the discussion.

In the end though I don't expect you to do anything (melodrama aside), this isn't the first thing I have seen a simple request for that was very reasonable that was shot down without much discussion. I have barely logged hours in a month or so now just due to the absolute tedium of testing a game for you that is as grindy as launch but has no playerbase to support your desired goals (trading, lack of self-sufficiency) and no experience buffs or anything to compensate.

I am quite confident that the devs, and the naysayers (fanboys maybe?) will write off requests like this one, no matter how well supported by data, as "just a bunch of whining over nothing". Fine, it literally bothers me not one bit. I have made my thoughts known and given warning about the short and long-term problems that this kind of lack of sincere concern and motivation causes in development and player interaction. I even gave myself some time partially off from the game to be certain I wasn't just burnt out, and it has only hardened my resolve. I like grinds, I don't like tedium. I don't mind grinding, I just don't like grinding and then losing 50% of what I do all that much - and I abhor doing such a thing if I am running solo (we all are basically now, the playerbase is beyond dead).

I intend to enjoy my time. This week, I won't grind a billion panthers or sells a billion items to buy one skill - I will do something fun for once, something not in this game. Admittedly, I am interested in the game overall (and I like grinds), but not testing it in this environment. Knowing myself though, I don't check in on games at all once I take a true break from them. There is always some small reason that we end up quitting anything, and this happens to be mine. Sincerely, I wish you the best of luck.

[Rowina]

The problem with changing anything temporarily specifically because we are in alpha/beta can defeat the purpose of testing as we won't get accurate data because the changed systems are operating under temporary perimeters. It can result in inaccurate conclusions.

Then an additional issue is those who become accustom to those temporary changes and those who've never known otherwise become frustrated when they change.

For example, if we temporarily lowered the fees of stalls then people will become accustom to those fees and those who never knew otherwise will become frustrated once the temporary cuts are removed. It's something that we see all the time and no, it doesn't matter if we say it's temporary because we get the same response to a lot of changes even though we are in active development and changes should be expected.

Well, I understand what you are saying but there are also ways to make that very clear. When you acquire a skill with temporary changes for say owning a shop you can open a chat box stating this is temporary and having a small explanation about it. Regarding the fact you cannot test it how it is I think we just did that for you to show you how it looks with a small market with waves of population of young and veteran players.

The problem with this situation where for 2 or 3 days I do not sell anything even though my shop offers very very various stuff from cloths to gems to crafted clothes to fire dust and saltpeter (just name it) is that in those days nothing at all sells. That is making the whole concept of player market lose its purpose if people just abandon their spot. And indeed like Khaylara says- We should make it look a bit like rl. Irl if the market is low prices go down. And yes percentage is also a great way of making sure the prices are variable enough.

Another point i was criticized about was the fact i said i am a permanent vendor. Being a permanent vendor in 1 place with set customers is also part of a market model. You always have those temporary merchants but you have your department stores and well known well trusted shops you always come back to. I would like to provide that to my customers. I am willing to pay top prices for rent but... There is also a limit to how much money i have to provide for that rent. Its easier for me to just dump it for 2 weens or to the next month and come back to wherever but I prefer as part of other doses of causes i give my council for in game (as a guild leader and a player who helps others with resources and my time) to still let my customers have a set place and permanent shop.

Sorry if its a bit messy but its morning on saturday (night for all you guys) as i am in the EU

[Khaylara]

Rowina- I completely agreed with Silvonis from one point of view. If they make things easier in any way during alpha then change them they get a massive backlash. There are numerous very angry "wipe" threads asking for a complete launch wipe because "older players had things easier than us".

Yes to permanent shops, even if the location changes I know Greyfyn's shop, Rum's shop etc. I'm actually glad that I can go straight to a shop knowing what they carry and not search for an hour for an item. Once they make the layout changes, more vendors should be visible and I think there will be place for everyone. I'm thinking in the future less players will have overpriced junk shops and most shops will carry actual useful items at competitive prices. Simply because a shop that sells Gruzark books for 10 k a pop will not be able to stay in business:) My guess is that's why the current rent system-to make it unprofitable unless it's an actual stall with useful items and not another storage option. Because the player base is small unfortunately it affects everyone atm.

[INXS]

Compare to 3 months ago the market has been on a steady hard decline, got to a point where now I just pay the 13xx coins to get booth up and running and let it run out, there's always empty stalls popping up in 2nd room sometimes even in first, the market is barely alive and to maintain a 8k coins a day for a specific spot is daring, changes would be nice lower prices would be great but that won't fix issue game population down, no clients no exposure no sale. Serb. went from a bustling little town with a lot of traffic to a little village. if those vendors stalls weren't bolted down most would have already left.

[Greyfyn]

Oooooh, yah know, if it's really population on the server we're talking about here.... Then yes, it's lower than when AC shut down last winter. But that was a huge surge!

And a LOT of people are waiting for the UI update to come back. And that is what Citan said he's working on NOW. So exciting! So hopefully people will come back and check it out.

In the meantime, fretting about low population on an indie alpha game probably only distracts everyone from getting things done. Like, let's not forget the bigger picture. When people check the forums for status on the game, let them find reasons to play, not reasons to avoid the game, yes? Yes~!

;)

[drivendawn]

I like the % tax of your sales idea as well. Although its not an absolute and would be fine with the way it is with some tweaks.

[DamageIncorp]

I am in agreement with Row and Arundel for the most part. I do believe, however, that prime real estate areas like the big room with Tadion should have higher rent. This models real life economies more accurately. High traffic areas typically have higher rents. As a whole, though, the current rent upkeep is stifling the economic growth of pg. I think rent should be lower as a whole and scale further down for the lower traffic rooms.
On a side note, i think i lost my shop this weekend because i have been without power and internet due to the hurricane and that sucks. Hope everyone affected is ok and trying to get back to life as normal.

[INXS]

I think on recent findings that things shouldnt be changed or if anything prices should be higher in Tadion's room to deter people from acquiring multiple bots to control/manipulate the prices in market.

[Easylivin]

the market space could be redesigned.

i think the market is supposed to be an attractive looking place. the vendor tables arent attractive which is fine, but the building could be improved.

https://www.thousandwonders.net/covers/b3/Kraków.Cloth.Hall.jpg
Here you see that the vendors are nested back and the walking space looks nice. this could help with keeping the frame rate high and providing more space for vendors.


also what if there were vendors with tables, like what we have now, and low cost vendors without tables. instead they had your items on the ground or on a rug or in a basket or two. and maybe these cheaper vendors can only sell cheaper items with max value, 100councils, and sell limited number of items, 10 stacks of 30 for example. if these existed they would be sitting in the halls or "unofficial places" and when you walked buy they would ask you if you had a minute to talk about your choice of cheese(like the annoying folks at the malls etc).

[Silvonis]

We've already said this, but just to reaffirm: the current market setup is temporary. It'll be addressed further along in development.

[Crissa]

I'd like a market that was more interactive. NPCs that approached me about things I was looking for or hawked their wares with gusto when I drew near.

Things that would be annoying, but in a game... Well, I am going to the market to be marketed at.

[Celedor]

I like the % tax of your sales idea as well.

I actually wonder what the point of such a tax would be. I figure the point of charging players to use a vendor is to ensure that only those who have a good chance of selling merchandise will set up shop. A tax on sales won't do this. All a sales tax would do is raise prices and take more money out of the hands of buyers.

Unless I've misunderstood how it would work.

But as Silvonis said, "the current market setup is temporary. It'll be addressed further along in development". So maybe it`s all moot.

[Crissa]

I actually wonder what the point of such a tax would be.
By using a sales tax, that means successful stores will cost correspondingly more. It also means the entrance fee can be less.

Here's a basic example: If the entrance fee is 100: the store needs to A) Have 100 on hand to open the store, B) Sell more than 100+costs to not operate at a loss.

But sales vastly fluctuate based upon product, time of day, time of week, release schedule... If that 100 is static, then the shop that is only open one day a week (but the best day) will do better than the shop that was open just slightly off schedule.

100 fee, 10x100c sales: 100/10*100; fee was 10% of gross. (aka a 10% tax)
100 fee, 20x100c sales: 100/20*100; fee was 5% of gross. (aka a 5% tax)

A smaller entrance fee but a higher tax would mean that the overall cost of operating a store would fluctuate based upon how well the store did - not how infrequently the store was open.

It depends on what sort of playstyle the devs want to encourage: Do they want to encourage players to pile in on specific days, leaving the world empty at other times as players are discouraged from having shops open on those days? Or do they want to encourage players to open on less profitable days anyhow, because there always are players who can't make the peak times, or to spread out server load?

In some sense, every mechanic in a game is pigovian ^-^

[Celedor]

But that's sort of my point. If tbhere is no, or only a nominal, entrance fee and instead everyone is paying 10% tax on everything they sell, what is the point of the tax? It doesn't encourage or discourage behaviour, and will at most raise prices by 10% across the board. And since there is no NPC owner of the market place who needs the money, the money raised just disappears. So there may as well be *no* sales tax.

Unless the point is simply to have a cash sink to minimize mudflation. Or if the money raised by the tax was used somehow to improve the market place. That would be cool.

[Asashoryu]

Why even have player vendors standing around in the first place?

Doesn't WoW kind of have this one figured out already?

[Tagamogi]

Unless the point is simply to have a cash sink to minimize mudflation. Or if the money raised by the tax was used somehow to improve the market place. That would be cool.
Yes, my assumption would be that a sales tax would just be used to reduce inflation. I like the market place improvement idea too, but I suspect it could get maxed out pretty quickly.

I think you are right that changing to a sales tax won't discourage players from repeat-renting vendor stalls, so under our current system of limited vendor stalls it would not be a good idea.

I'm vaguely toying around with the idea of some kind of advertisement board for the slower selling items. For example, what if each player could post a single self-written ad saying they are able to deliver items x, y and z on demand, and then the ad board could facilitate some kind of communication and item exchange if someone is interested in their product? Ads could be low-priced but would need to be rebought every week to avoid stale ads. When a player posts an ad, they could also be asked to choose 1-3 item categories in which they are able to deliver products, like food, gear or alchemy ingredients or something like that. This could help players searching the ad board to actually find what they are looking for. Just random brainstorming here...

[Crissa]

The tax would be a way to keep the entrance fee low, but keep costs fairly static.

It would discourage people from optimizing towards the more active times and open shops more frequently.

Such taxes and fees are often re-jiggered in real life to keep markets full of vendors. If you went to Seattle's Pike Place Market, you would find that stalls vary in price by centrality, permanence, as well as day or week and time of year. Some slots require the vendor to show up in the morning and sign up, others can be requested in advance. And these fees are often changed. The city itself also charges tax by what you're selling, when you're selling it, how you're selling, where your'e selling...

In a game, these are sinks yes, but they can be used to balance the cost and benefits so that small shops can exist alongside large ones; lowbie shops next to high-level. And to shift the times and days when vendors put up shops as well.

And there's really no magic to this; like in real life, there is no fixed point for the fees that is always optimal.

[Dibbuk]

I would gladly shop at the player vendors more, if I knew what they had available. Without treading on Turbines' bunions, I would like to see something like: !vsearch explosive runestone, and see a list of each vendor with an explosive runestone for sale, and how many, and what price.

[INXS]

That's the way it should be Dibbuk ,would even help market with competitive prices

[Atis]

That tax thingie, how is it supposed to work in case of somebody keeping his prices high, selling nothing, yet occupying a good spot for months because entrance fee is insignificant?

[Crissa]

That tax thingie, how is it supposed to work in case of somebody keeping his prices high, selling nothing, yet occupying a good spot for months because entrance fee is insignificant?
...And if the price was high, then what happens if all the venders are empty?

There are cases where every price/tax point breaks. That's why it's silly to think there's one true balance point.

[spider91301]

honestly ever since finding out how much the rent is i swore never even to waste cash learning it even if its free alot of playerstalls especially gem ones are disappearing left and right cuz of this crap thats why im not bothering

[Tagamogi]

The rent isn't that bad if you only rent a shop 1 to maybe 3 times a month. Which is probably the intended effect of the increasing rent system, but raises the problem of where you are going to store the things that you are planning on selling next week until then.

That being said, the main reason I picked up retail management is that my money will be wiped but my skills won't be, so raising retail management now seemed like a good investment even if I'm losing cash. :p My store actually turned out to be surprisingly profitable (making a slight profit as opposed to my planned money drain), but if I was trying to make money in PG, I wouldn't pick renting a vendor stall as my best opportunity.

I don't think the gem stalls have disappeared because of the rent though, I suspect players just got tired of surveying all the time.

[Khaylara]

That tax thingie, how is it supposed to work in case of somebody keeping his prices high, selling nothing, yet occupying a good spot for months because entrance fee is insignificant?

A shop that doesn't sell usually shuts down, if someone doesn't make a profit (and as result doesn't pay tax) for a number of days, the shop should be shut down and up for rent again.

Tagamogi-you don't need to collect your items and store them, the retail NPC keeps them for you till you re-open the stall.

[Tagamogi]

you don't need to collect your items and store them, the retail NPC keeps them for you till you re-open the stall.

I'm thinking more of a scenario where i find something new that I know I'd like to sell, but I don't have a vendor stall currently rented. As far as I know, I can't give new items to the retail NPC to hang onto until the next time I open a store. My store actually cleans out pretty well when I run it, so anytime I re-open I may have 4-5 leftover pieces from the last time and then I usually have to get 20-some brand-new items from somewhere in order to make running the store worthwhile.

[Atis]

And if the price was high, then what happens if all the venders are empty?

Why would they be empty? The rest work as usual, only some dudes are taking some cool spots near entrance with prices nobody would pay.


There are cases where every price/tax point breaks. That's why it's silly to think there's one true balance point.
Yay, some vague life wisdom that never works.


A shop that doesn't sell usually shuts down
Why?

[Khaylara]

Tagamogi-I misunderstood:)
Atis-why? Because that's how businesses work, you can't sell=you're out.

[HardRock]

I dont know if you all noticed but the community is changing. As a permanent player vendor owner I am feeling that the market is becoming very slow. Maybe more people are becoming more self sufficient or using different skills but in general sales are very very low. I would really like for you Citan to tell me what you think about lowering our rent during the alpha since keeping up with paying almost 8k daily and not selling a thing its a bit too much. Yes there is always the option of leaving the shop and coming back later but I would like to keep my spot at the first hall near Tadion if that is going to be possible since the game as it is still isnt launched. In regular circumstances I would understand it if you would say that I should give someone else the chance to be selling in that room but at this point with such low population it doesn't really matter where you are standing. we are all experiencing an ebb in sales

Perhaps if you didn't have 2 vendors, located in the front room you wouldn't be feeling the crunch of 240,000c a month in rent. The mechanic that you have gripe with is performing as it should. It is draining your income to have two of the best spots around. The fact that you are lobbying to get your rent reduced just shows the danger of monopolies. I always laughed about how easy it was to make sales in this game since there was no sales tax. Lower your prices and sell items that people want or take a 10 day break on vending and the rate returns to a more sustainable amount.

The economy is simply experiencing a summer lull. I am pulling about 50k a day after a break of a few months. 8k on 50k is 16% . So i pay a premium of 16% on my goods to be able to go out and locate more goods to sell instead of having to stop gaming and deal with people in trade channel.

One thing that I did notice is that that spawn rates need to be reduced, OR demand of some items needs to increase. This can be achieved by increasing the useuage of items. My example items are spruce and Tundra Lichen. They both used to be somewhat hard to find on player stalls (for reasonable prices). Currently stacks of spruce go for 150 instead of the 175+ from the beginning of summer
%. Tundra Lichen hasnt dropped below 250 from what I have seen but there are vendors with large stacks of the item. A few months ago this item was in the 250-350 range and people didnt have huge amounts of it. I hate to say it but perhaps we need more bone breaking monsters in the game.

We are watching items deflate in value due to excessive supply. (bat guano used to be 16k per item, recently I bought a stack for 2k, left it in guild chest, and it has gone untouched)

Another good way of keeping supply low would be to introduce mold risk on organic items and brittleness increase on non living items. if someone has items that are past 30 days old their is a risk of losing the item. The fact that we can store food items for indefinite amounts of time with out risk of loss is... well, to me silly. I took a long break and when i came back all my food was fine. Its not like I was storing it in the crypt where underground storage could act like a pantry.

[Tagamogi]

One thing that I did notice is that that spawn rates need to be reduced, OR demand of some items needs to increase. This can be achieved by increasing the useuage of items. My example items are spruce and Tundra Lichen. They both used to be somewhat hard to find on player stalls (for reasonable prices). Currently stacks of spruce go for 150 instead of the 175+ from the beginning of summer
%. Tundra Lichen hasnt dropped below 250 from what I have seen but there are vendors with large stacks of the item. A few months ago this item was in the 250-350 range and people didnt have huge amounts of it. I hate to say it but perhaps we need more bone breaking monsters in the game.


It seems to me that you are trying to adjust the economy here to benefit your store. ( No offense intended, I think I'm doing the same.) This actually sounds like a good argument against fixed-price stall rents to me: You need to be able to sell items for a certain amount in order to make running the store worthwhile and as items fluctuate in value, it may no longer be worth stocking them if their selling price can't compensate for the store rent.



Another good way of keeping supply low would be to introduce mold risk on organic items and brittleness increase on non living items. if someone has items that are past 30 days old their is a risk of losing the item. The fact that we can store food items for indefinite amounts of time with out risk of loss is... well, to me silly. I took a long break and when i came back all my food was fine. Its not like I was storing it in the crypt where underground storage could act like a pantry.
Please, no. Yes, it would be realistic. Yes, it would be a great money sink. No, having to continuously restock everything isn't fun, and I suspect would deter players from coming back after a break.

[Sheawanna]

Please, no. Yes, it would be realistic. Yes, it would be a great money sink. No, having to continuously restock everything isn't fun, and I suspect would deter players from coming back after a break.

I so agree , although realistic most players would most likely find another game if that were to happen .

[Rowina]

Dear mr HR, There is no economy at the moment. having 2 stores is my own business and has its reasons. every morning (my time) when 2 or 3 spots open in the main room i announce it in global chat. unlike you i am trying to make the whole game benefit from good changes while you are benefitting your own pocket. but thats not new as we all know. welcome back btw

[lileth]

I don't think the gem stalls have disappeared because of the rent though, I suspect players just got tired of surveying all the time.

I was selling on average 1,200 gems a week for the months I had my stall. I still survey, but what I don't do now is survey so that 1 or 2 players can purchase most of my gems, mark them up and then resell them to others. My friend that was an active surveyor is busy in rl so the market lost 2 of it's most active old lady surveyors at the same time.

[Nightz2k]

Perhaps if you didn't have 2 vendors, located in the front room you wouldn't be feeling the crunch of 240,000c a month in rent. The mechanic that you have gripe with is performing as it should. It is draining your income to have two of the best spots around. The fact that you are lobbying to get your rent reduced just shows the danger of monopolies. I always laughed about how easy it was to make sales in this game since there was no sales tax. Lower your prices and sell items that people want or take a 10 day break on vending and the rate returns to a more sustainable amount.

The economy is simply experiencing a summer lull. I am pulling about 50k a day after a break of a few months. 8k on 50k is 16% . So i pay a premium of 16% on my goods to be able to go out and locate more goods to sell instead of having to stop gaming and deal with people in trade channel.


If you've played in the past few months, you'd notice that the "front" vendor spots have opened up various times. There aren't many that actually keep their spot these days. I've let my "front" vendors go a few times now and I have gotten one of those spots again and again. Regardless of where I've had my vendor, I 've had no issues selling anyway. If you stock certain things often enough, players will come back to you.

The economy is constantly changing. Players are coming and going, new and old. Some of the veteran high level players can stock up on just about anything they want to, so yeah, some items will be less rare nowadays. Obvious reason, the longer you play, the more you can accumulate, especially ones focused on certain items they know that sell well. There's always a few items that stay pretty stable in the market. (ie: Stomachs for instance)

Just my 2¢ =)

[HardRock]

I think on recent findings that things shouldnt be changed or if anything prices should be higher in Tadion's room to deter people from acquiring multiple bots to control/manipulate the prices in market.

I 2nd this.

[HardRock]

Dear mr HR, There is no economy at the moment. having 2 stores is my own business and has its reasons. every morning (my time) when 2 or 3 spots open in the main room i announce it in global chat. unlike you i am trying to make the whole game benefit from good changes while you are benefitting your own pocket. but thats not new as we all know. welcome back btw

Dear Mrs. Rowina if their is no economy why did my shop clear 178k in 26 hours? Mind you that was as soon as I moved my shop next to yours. The front room really is nice, that was my first tour there. Hell I think that rent should continue to rise and not top out at 8k. As we have heard 8k doesn't stop everyone from holding spots indefinitely.

What if rents went up each day but was only specific to that stall. Go to a different stall and your timer is back to day 1.

Just to be clear about what you said. You are making the game better for everyone and I only care about my own pocket.. I kinda doubt that the server wants to hear you take jabs at me. Unless of course y'all do, in which case let the roast begin!

[Rowina]

Dear Mrs. Rowina if their is no economy why did my shop clear 178k in 26 hours? Mind you that was as soon as I moved my shop next to yours. The front room really is nice, that was my first tour there. Hell I think that rent should continue to rise and not top out at 8k. As we have heard 8k doesn't stop everyone from holding spots indefinitely.

What if rents went up each day but was only specific to that stall. Go to a different stall and your timer is back to day 1.

Just to be clear about what you said. You are making the game better for everyone and I only care about my own pocket.. I kinda doubt that the server wants to hear you take jabs at me. Unless of course y'all do, in which case let the roast begin!

The reason i have 2 shops is because unlike you i spend most of the hours of my playing which is daily for hours helping my guild members giving away stuff... taking them to dungeons... explaining to them what to do and spending most of my councils to benefit my guild. So please stop acting like i would expect you to act and leave me alone to your own business

[Rowina]

and yes @hard rock you are just the same old you... bought off my winterprize only to sell it for a higher price and hog more money! I give good prices to stuff i myself worked hard to get! while you try to destroy the market and not let others the opportunity to buy stuff for a decent price. shame on you

[lileth]

Dear Mrs. Rowina if their is no economy why did my shop clear 178k in 26 hours? Mind you that was as soon as I moved my shop next to yours. The front room really is nice, that was my first tour there.

I would imagine part of it was the 70+ stomachs that I purchased at over $1200 each. I would've and have been purchasing them all summer, for me it has nothing to do with where the vendor is located.

I thought attacking others on the forums for having an opinion or suggestion was frowned on by the devs...

[lileth]

If you've played in the past few months, you'd notice that the "front" vendor spots have opened up various times. There aren't many that actually keep their spot these days. I've let my "front" vendors go a few times now and I have gotten one of those spots again and again. Regardless of where I've had my vendor, I 've had no issues selling anyway. If you stock certain things often enough, players will come back to you.

The economy is constantly changing. Players are coming and going, new and old. Some of the veteran high level players can stock up on just about anything they want to, so yeah, some items will be less rare nowadays. Obvious reason, the longer you play, the more you can accumulate, especially ones focused on certain items they know that sell well. There's always a few items that stay pretty stable in the market. (ie: Stomachs for instance)

Just my 2¢ =)

Exactly Nightz, when I was selling gems in the second room I had no problem selling gems.

The point about having a vendor in the same spot is true in my opinion because then I know where to find my friends and preferred vendors but thinking the main room is a better sell than other rooms is just silly.

Such a shame players can't communicate re the game without people turning it into a verbal pvp. :(

[srand]

I think this thread has wandered away from good discussion about the various suggestions. Let's bring it back to that, shall we?

[INXS]

High rent- slow sale. Keeping a vendor bot on same stall day after day will cap at 8k if having a vendor and you can't even make 8k back a day then it could be that items being sold are either in the medium/low demand and/or overpriced, the market is always changing and thats true but if you want to make money all you need to do is sell cheese, gems and stomachs. Those items are high demand anything else you selling then you taking a gamble.

[lileth]

As I've stated before there are so many things to do in PG, one of the reasons I love it, I tend to get side-tracked easily. One of the areas I forget about is gourmand. The evening the servers went down I didn't want to start any new projects so I decided to spend some time taste testing the vendors that sell food items. I had a blast doing it!

I don't spend a lot of time "in the PG kitchen," in other words I've been slowly lvling cooking but don't overly pay attention to all the food details. I have no idea how time consuming and expensive it is to make the various food items so I don't know if those vendors are profitable, but I sure do like seeing them.

I've heard others bring up the topic of gourmand and the variety of food items. Any thoughts or feedback from those experienced with it? (I don't mean cheeses.) Is there anything that would help encourage more food vendors, etc?

I kind of like the idea of a food court.

I definitely hope that those who do enjoy specializing in food continue to do so and I like when they make food related names for their shops, it makes it easy to remember you! :)

[Crissa]

Please, no. Yes, it would be realistic. Yes, it would be a great money sink. No, having to continuously restock everything isn't fun, and I suspect would deter players from coming back after a break.Well, you wouldn't want the timer to run while the player was offline, of course.

And lots of times I give up searching vendors after searching the first room. It takes alot of time to visit each one, especially with how I have to move the character around the NPCs with multiple different keystrokes.

[Atis]

Khaylara


Because that's how businesses work, you can't sell=you're out.

You might want to learn basics of economics first, like kindergarten level at least. Start with costs topic.

if market spot has potential value and standing there costs you pretty much nothing (because nobody buys your overpriced stuff and entrance fee is negligible), you can stay there forever.

[Khaylara]

Khaylara



You might want to learn basics of economics first, like kindergarten level at least. Start with costs topic.

if market spot has potential value and standing there costs you pretty much nothing (because nobody buys your overpriced stuff and entrance fee is negligible), you can stay there forever.

You might want to learn the basics of social behavior (and literacy). This thread is called HIGH RENT, SLOW SALES so "standing there costs you pretty much nothing" does not apply. You're welcome, I just deciphered the thread title for you. Wasted time since you only wrote a random reply just to try a personal attack. Bye

[Atis]

You might want to learn the basics of social behavior (and literacy). This thread is called HIGH RENT, SLOW SALES so "standing there costs you pretty much nothing" does not apply. You're welcome, I just deciphered the thread title for you. Wasted time since you only wrote a random reply just to try a personal attack. Bye


Besides thread name there are also few pages of text, you might want to read those before commenting, if your literacy level allows that much. Especially Crissa's suggestion to make fee tiny and taxes - high. Which I was answering. You're welcome, I just deciphered the the mystery of reading power for you. Wasted time since you only read thread name and wrote a random reply just to try nitpick on something way beyond your understanding. Bye.

[Silvonis]

Any further negative comments directed at a player will result in being removed from this thread. Please keep on topic and keep responses constructive.

[Crissa]

My suggestion was that the fee and tax needs to vary based upon the economics of the situation. One example was that a low fee and high tax would invite more stores to exist. But if there were enough stores, you might want to raise the fee to increase churn. A high fee, though, might block lower level or mid-level items from being posted; they wouldn't be profitable enough. In that case, a tax would be preferable, as it would hit the profit margin of high and low end items similarly.

But the market changes based upon available coin drops, playerbase, and player concurrent online peaks and troughs. That might mean making one (tax or fee) higher than the other; or that might mean making both higher, or lower. They have different effects on play, and those effects are what I was referring to.

So no, I did not make a specific suggestion that there be a low fee. I took part in a discussion of the effects of those game mechanics. ^-^

[Atis]

The tax would be a way to keep the entrance fee low
I was answering to that.

Making auto-ajustable fee/tax system effective and fool-proof would probably take more time and effort than making the game itself, devs are not economics experts afaik. And manual adjustments should be rare to let players feel some stability on market.

[Crissa]

I was answering to that.What were you answering? Because I wrote this:
So no, I did not make a specific suggestion that there be a low fee. I took part in a discussion of the effects of those game mechanics. ^-^

Because situational economics changes means no one formula will work. The formula will need to change based upon population, drops, and market conditions. Different tools - like surcharges and ranked fees or whatever - can be employed to different effect.

This is my point.


But the market changes based upon available coin drops, playerbase, and player concurrent online peaks and troughs. That might mean making one (tax or fee) higher than the other; or that might mean making both higher, or lower. They have different effects on play, and those effects are what I was referring to.


Making auto-ajustable...I did not say anything like that. I did suggest some of it could move based upon how many stalls are occupied; that wouldn't be difficult or hard for players to predict.


And manual adjustments should be rare...Maybe. Without warning or pattern, changes can seem arbitrary and unfair. But it's not like they're tinkering with the numbers each week without warning. And we already have in-game mechanic weekend bonuses for essentially random things.

The devs should tinker with the game to get the output they desire. And we should give them feedback if the marketplace isn't giving the economic incentives to sell the things we as players want it to. And many of us have had decades of experience playing various games, making games, running games. So we should offer up that experience. It's part of community.

You're right. I don't expect a foolproof system. That would be silly!

[Bakau]

Quick question - any vendor selling masterwork dense arrows?

[Khaylara]

Quick question - any vendor selling masterwork dense arrows?

Should be one in room A, last stall on the right side.

[Atis]

What were you answering?

I quoted the part I was answering to.


I did not say anything like that. I did suggest some of it could move based upon how many stalls are occupied; that wouldn't be difficult or hard for players to predict.
If it's auto-adjustable, it should have damn good algorithm, which devs wont make within reasonable time. And manual changes will look like devs whims, making any economy planning unreliable.

So no, I would suggest to not change fee and taxes all the time. Merchants that can be placed anywhere (except abusable spots) would solve this issue better.

[Crissa]

Merchants that can be placed anywhere (except abusable spots) would solve this issue better.

How is that any different than messing with the prices?

You still haven't said why it would be back for the prices to vary. Or where I said it had to be automatic.

And varying the price - so that the first stall is cheap and the last stall is more expensive - is not even a fancy or un-thought of algorithm. It's literally what they do at Pike's Place Market. The more stalls are reserved, the higher the price will be to keep the stall. That market opened in 1907. This is the example I was thinking of.

When designing a game, you're playing with the very rules which encourage or discourage player actions. Taking or learning from examples in the real world - from markets to stadium seats' pricing - is one way of doing that without reinventing the wheel. And yet, many times you might have to. Economics is often called a very soft science because the very pool of actions will change depending on information and experience. An experienced pool will have very different reactions to a set of prices than an inexperienced pool of actors. So over time, both the buyers and the sellers have to shift their target around.

Which means literally that there is no one price; that 'right' price will vary; and it won't be just a matter of numbers to get the right price.

The number of vendors available on different days of the week will vary because the game does, in fact, have 'prime times' based upon the population of players. Trying to maximize and entice vendors to stick around and offer things is in itself a game for the devs to play. A game which has a 'right' answer that will never be exactly the same, as the players wil game right back at them.

And that's how economic incentives work!

[Atis]

How is that any different than messing with the prices?

In all ways possible? Messing with prices is constant extra work for devs, allowing merchants everywhere is one-time work.

>You still haven't said why it would be back for the prices to vary.

I did in my previous post, the one you are answering.

> Or where I said it had to be automatic.

I never said you did. I covered both options - automatic and manual.

Real worlds practices are not applicable here mostly, players don't earn money to live, they just play. Incentives are different from the start to finish. Examples from older open world MMOs are more relevant.

>And that's how economic incentives work!

Not in game. Only incentive to make money is to buy skills. And it's more reliable to just grind money with combat skills without interacting with other players, something impossible in real world. How much players do you know that took some tradeskill to make money? It's totally opposite of real world, where trade is mostly about money and money are made by interacting with other people. Only most basic economics principles are the same, all conditions are different, so it makes no sense to apply something from real market.

[Sasho]

Not only that, but the rooms were intended to be sorted by what was sold! There is an underlying economic structure here and it's designed to avoid people monopolizing that front room. [That said, there's no good reason to have the other rooms sectioned off the way they are; there doesn't need to be "second" or "third" class rooms. THAT can be changed by geographically rotating the walls.

I guess if after a new layout is in place, if there are still first/second/third rooms, rent could fluctuate on location. Closer to entrance = higher daily upkeep cost.

My fear is for when people get 2 accounts and start swapping the merchant between them - forever holding it in place while also keep their rent low. Perhaps there's nothing that can be done to prevent this, but I guess in that case I'll just take solace in the fact that there are more important things in life. lol

[INXS]

I've seen this sort of monopoly control in room E there's 4-6 vendors, is it the same person or a few from same guild not sure but prices across all of them are the same.

[Crissa]

In all ways possible?

There is no option of 'not messing with pricing'. The economics and pricing has to be messed with. Otherwise it will fall off the balance that it's at, one way or another, and then die.

Your statement 'not in game' is completely bs. Literally if grinding is easier to get money than the stores - the stores will die. That's economic incentives. It's not an argument against them.

The only reason for people iRL to accumulate money is the same as the ones in game: To perpetuate playing.

[Atis]

There is no option of 'not messing with pricing'. The economics and pricing has to be messed with. Otherwise it will fall off the balance that it's at, one way or another, and then die.

Your statement 'not in game' is completely bs. Literally if grinding is easier to get money than the stores - the stores will die. That's economic incentives. It's not an argument against them.

The only reason for people iRL to accumulate money is the same as the ones in game: To perpetuate playing.

You are welcome to try to not perpetuate playing with 0 money for a month in game and IRL. Would end up way better in game. Then you can taste the difference in incentives, literally.

You can play just fine without giving or getting any money from other players. You wont live long doing same irl. Not exactly comparable reasons to participate in market.


Multiple MMOs live without direct price control just fine. Only games that would suffer from poor markets would be ones where crafters are rare and you cannot do a thing without crafting stuff. In PG everybody except perma-animal players can be a crafter with multiple specs and items don't deteriorate. Market can die and revive once a week and it would be fine.

There is no "if", grinding is a better way to make gold, and stores live, not as a necessity but as a side activity, hobby sometimes. Thats perfectly normal for PG, it's a hangout game with zero competition or survival elements.

All that mush about "fall off the balance and die" cant happen in game where is no balance and nowhere to fall from. You need to build active market first and for that you either limit players in many ways to force them to trade or make trading so easy and convenient it's just silly not to participate. Limiting players is against PG concept and what could be more convenient than having player owned vendors around the world with low fees and loose time limitations?

[Crissa]

You are welcome to try to not perpetuate playing with 0 money for a month in game and IRL.
Okay, I'm done talking to you.

There is just nothing in your posts but repeated misreading.

If you have no coin in game, you don't get new abilities. As you deftly pointed out. You'd start having trouble making food, keeping your pockets clear, crafting, questing. At least you don't die, but without coin, you will certainly do that more.

If you want to continue arguing, go ahead. But you again pointed out why there is no one single true balance point, and the devs will have to mess with the economics - and in fact, do mess with the economics all the time with their application of drops, fees, etc.

[Seadee]

i lurk a lot, play the game from time to time, played plenty of MMO's with personal vendors and played games without, one thing i always wanted to do in AC1 was set up a shop selling wares to peoples, but it was a naive thing to think back then.

having grown up watching mmo's evolve in strange ways, i couldnt help be think that the AC1 vendor system (sold items become stock of the vendor) was a really clever way of doing it, sure it could have done with a better interface (one long continuous bar of goods, poorly organised with no search ability was time consuming to look through in busy areas) but it did the trick, Players got their worth for the items, vendors sold them on, no loot lost or at least no useful loot lost.

now i understand these days that is essentially what auction houses do but it really doesnt have to be as complicated as that, you could even have some clever maths thrown in where the vendor reacts like a player.

you sell/give stock to a vendor, he has a base price and markup that he sells things at, the more of a certain item he has the lower his markup is (supply and demand yeah?) conversely he also has a markdown that he buys things at, the more of an item he has the less he buys it for.

the vendor still has to pay "rent" after all, this can be represented by stall/shop, even to the point of not having a vendor there to sell anything and you having to front the guy in the first place just so he can get a stall/shop running, but having a single guy or a few of them selling ALL players items makes it less crowded and easier to manage, skills in haggling and other financial concepts would result in you getting more money or paying less for your items.

"successful" vendors could then branch out, have more assistants, bigger, fancier shops, perhaps even multiple premises in different cities which share stock, the prices would be controlled by the fact that players want to make the most out of their sales, they will sell to the vendor offering the most and of course would buy from the ones offering the least, i'm sure they would then be a valuable trade market going on.

obviously this is just a ramble and not a fully thought out idea, but i always find masses of player run stalls to look "a bit shit" in games, especially if they are able to put them anywhere they want, i know this has a market hall, but still ... stall after stall after stall probably selling more or less the same stuff, no one has time for that.

tl:dr - player owned stores, Bad, NPC run stores supplied by players, Good.

[Atis]

Okay, I'm done talking to you.

There is just nothing in your posts but repeated misreading.

If you have no coin in game, you don't get new abilities. As you deftly pointed out. You'd start having trouble making food, keeping your pockets clear, crafting, questing. At least you don't die, but without coin, you will certainly do that more.
Pff, "Ingame market works like IRL one!" - "Not it's not, here's why" - "Repeated misreading!"

You get coin from farm, market can be ignored. If you change that, it's still no biggie. Ye, you don't get abilities, so what? Will you die? will you be unable to do stuff, if already have bunch of abilities? There is no rush to get coin at any cost.




If you want to continue arguing, go ahead. But you again pointed out why there is no one single true balance point, and the devs will have to mess with the economics - and in fact, do mess with the economics all the time with their application of drops, fees, etc.
Repeated misreading! I said devs DON'T need to mess with economics if market gets fixed, they need to mess only if market is broken and requires crutches.


NPC run stores supplied by players, Good.

Wouldn't that reinforce self-playing game part? Less control at player hands, smaller part of economic is player-run etc.

[Crissa]

You get coin from farm, market can be ignored.
That's like saying you can get coin by working in a factory/fishing/playing music on the street instead of owning a store. Of course it exists, but that isn't a feature that makes the market forces less like reality.

[Atis]

Of course it exists, but that isn't a feature that makes the market forces less like reality.
It never was like reality to begin with, hardly can get less realistic.


To attract players to market it should be either interesting or important. It's not interesting and, thanks to coin-farming, it's not important. In it's current form it's pretty much store owner roleplay or charity.

[Crissa]

It never was like reality to begin with, hardly can get less realistic.
This contradicts this:


To attract players to market it should be either interesting or important. It's not interesting and, thanks to coin-farming, it's not important. In it's current form it's pretty much store owner roleplay or charity.
...Which doesn't disagree with the assertion that economics is economics, in game or out.

[Atis]

This contradicts this:


...Which doesn't disagree with the assertion that economics is economics, in game or out.
Economics is different for every situation and there is no IRL situation exactly like in PG. Bazaar merchant from tiny pacific island will do at Wall Street just as good as IRL economics does in this game.

[Crissa]

Thank you for saying economics doesn't exist pointlessly. It's nice that you have such unfounded beliefs, I guess, for you, but disastrous for games and real life.

That's so... Unique and useful and going to get the thread locked.


Economics is different for every situation and there is no IRL situation exactly like in PG. Bazaar merchant from tiny pacific island will do at Wall Street just as good as IRL economics does in this game.

There's so much wrong there.

As long as there is capital to trade, it doesn't matter if it's pigs, pig futures, or stocks, the basic mathematics of it doesn't change; just the weights of the parameters.

You might have well just said a campfire has no relation to a blast furnace. Or an integrated circuit to a Baghdad battery. Only the parameters change, not the formula or mechanics.

[Atis]

Thank you for saying economics doesn't exist pointlessly. It's nice that you have such unfounded beliefs, I guess, for you, but disastrous for games and real life.

That's so... Unique and useful and going to get the thread locked.



There's so much wrong there.

As long as there is capital to trade, it doesn't matter if it's pigs, pig futures, or stocks, the basic mathematics of it doesn't change; just the weights of the parameters.

You might have well just said a campfire has no relation to a blast furnace. Or an integrated circuit to a Baghdad battery. Only the parameters change, not the formula or mechanics.

Parameters are quite important. Both beggar at New York street and billionaire gets dollars and spend them for living, yet their life and influence on environment are not comparable. Same basic formula, different parameters. It's considered stupid to compare apples and oranges but they are both fruits - same formula, different parameters.

[Crissa]

Atis So there's no comparison between the player flush in cash and the player not flush in cash, trying to get access to the same marketplace?

What is the point of denying that economics informs gameplay?

I don't get it.

[Atis]

Ask the one denying it, not me.

What's a point of denying that not exactly real-life like economics informs gameplay?

[fellentier]

Just going to throw in my two cents here...

I've made millions selling regular items that people want, and need, and a good price. If you have slow sales, you're selling something in a bloated market, that is too expensive, or is too niche. Just try different things, lower prices ( and if it's too low to make a profit, then just swap markets) -- play around with it. THere's a lot to be made.

[Mikhaila]

Game Economies are always fun to look at as a mathematics problem (for me, i like the math). I have a couple of degrees, one dealt with a lot of math modeling and game theory. While smaller, Game economics will follow many rules of supply demand, but in the end they aren't real economies and real world dynamics are hard to mirror. In the real world each person has little effect on the economy, in a small game like Project Gorgon, even one person can affect things greatly. A group can absolutely control some aspects of the economy. I've owned gaming stores for 30 years. The mindset of players is the real driving force. Makes for very interesting economics.

With the steam release, we have a large influx of players. Suddenly low level stuff in the market will start selling. Stuff that sat dead and rarely moved will start selling as new people gain money and need things like fire dust, saltpeter, trade skill supplies, food stuffs etc.

Older players are coming back to the game. They may have significant amounts of money. If someone with half a million councils decides to buy up all the metal or cotton your see a much higher demand for these items. I haven't seen cotton in the market for days. Never see low end metal. Gems are hard to find at 200 and some people selling for 400.

I know this is an old thread, but with all the changes to the economic landscape, it was fun to go back and read about the problems when the population was going down, and compare that to today.

[Crissa]

Mikhaila That's why I was mentioning local markets like farmer's markets, or a specific market like Pike's Place in Seattle. In a smaller market you get alot of the same effects like in games.

But as to a single person affecting the price in the real world, well... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornering_the_market#2010:_Armajaro_and_the_Europe an_cocoa_market

[Atis]

Game markets are nothing like RL ones. Only basic supply/demand principle stays the same, motivation is not comparable. Mistake IRL might make you a homeless bum, mistake in game will make you shrug and grind some more cash or stuff to sell. trending products IRL make crowds crazy (see new iPhone lines), new meta items in PG will probably be noticed by 3 ppl at first. Basically, game market is always soft and safe, game economics better be planned with that in mind.

[Celtia]

In every game I played since EQ, economy is what drives the game to last. It is a big factor. When economy dies out, game does so with it (in most instances I have noticed). However, I am worried the economy style in this game is not a long lasting one, i fear.

I am loving this game. Even though I have been playing only since Steam Launch. I have been reading most of these threads about economy and the lack of due to player population, etc.

I think the problem why, is that there is no need for an economy in this game. Due to the fact that everyone can use and mostly need to use everything they get, via favor/crafting/quests. etc.

What makes economies actually work, is limiting players to only 1-2 crafts at a time (not including Industry), with a hefty cost in a way to switch out a craft. Also, somehow try to fail-safe where players can not create an alt for every craft. Almost all economies in mmo's do well when limiting crafts because then items crafted and the items needed will be in the market and constantly needed. Why I will never partake in Gorgon's economy because A) it takes A lot of hassle to even check every stand I am noticing. B) There is no need when every player can be self sufficient. C) Why master a crafting skill like weapon/armor in a sense when everyone mostly likely will level it up end game and no need to craft something more than once.

This is why almost every mmo limits crafting skills. Think about RL, if every person in the world can easily get milk and sold milk. Why would milk be for sale at stores.

my two councils.

[sudostahp]

In every game I played since EQ, economy is what drives the game to last. It is a big factor. When economy dies out, game does so with it (in most instances I have noticed). However, I am worried the economy style in this game is not a long lasting one, i fear.

I am loving this game. Even though I have been playing only since Steam Launch. I have been reading most of these threads about economy and the lack of due to player population, etc.

I think the problem why, is that there is no need for an economy in this game. Due to the fact that everyone can use and mostly need to use everything they get, via favor/crafting/quests. etc.

What makes economies actually work, is limiting players to only 1-2 crafts at a time (not including Industry), with a hefty cost in a way to switch out a craft. Also, somehow try to fail-safe where players can not create an alt for every craft. Almost all economies in mmo's do well when limiting crafts because then items crafted and the items needed will be in the market and constantly needed. Why I will never partake in Gorgon's economy because A) it takes A lot of hassle to even check every stand I am noticing. B) There is no need when every player can be self sufficient. C) Why master a crafting skill like weapon/armor in a sense when everyone mostly likely will level it up end game and no need to craft something more than once.

This is why almost every mmo limits crafting skills. Think about RL, if every person in the world can easily get milk and sold milk. Why would milk be for sale at stores.

my two councils.

I can count the number of crafting skills in-game on one hand that will ever turn a player a profit. In most cases, crafting skills here are a fun time/cash sink. Think of crafting as another way to spend money. The materials are important drivers of the economy, and since anyone can learn any number of crafting skills, demand for many crafting-related items remains high.

You're still new, so you don't know how much it's going to cost to get a combat skill from 50-70. It's going to force you to grind something, somewhere, to make it happen, an in effect also contribute to the economy.

[Tagamogi]

I can count the number of crafting skills in-game on one hand that will ever turn a player a profit.

Off the top of my head, I'd call leatherworking, carpentry, toolcrafting, tailoring, cooking, mushroom farming and transmutation all profitable. That's more fingers than most people have on one hand. ;) Part of why I like the PG crafting system so much is that almost any trade skill can be profitable if you level it carefully. (Well, ok, I'd call brewing and cheese making fun money sinks at this point in time, but to me it feels that skills like that are more the exception than the rule).



What makes economies actually work, is limiting players to only 1-2 crafts at a time (not including Industry), with a hefty cost in a way to switch out a craft.


We may be talking about different things, but in my opinion what makes an economy work well is having a strong demand for items that are in strong supply. PG accomplishes that quite nicely by supplementing player demand with game-generated work orders. I guess you could argue that non-player work orders will drive up inflation over time, but that's a somewhat different issue.

[sudostahp]

Off the top of my head, I'd call leatherworking, carpentry, toolcrafting, tailoring, cooking, mushroom farming and transmutation all profitable. That's more fingers than most people have on one hand. ;) Part of why I like the PG crafting system so much is that almost any trade skill can be profitable if you level it carefully. (Well, ok, I'd call brewing and cheese making fun money sinks at this point in time, but to me it feels that skills like that are more the exception than the rule).



We may be talking about different things, but in my opinion what makes an economy work well is having a strong demand for items that are in strong supply. PG accomplishes that quite nicely by supplementing player demand with game-generated work orders. I guess you could argue that non-player work orders will drive up inflation over time, but that's a somewhat different issue.

Leatherworking, toolcrafting, and tailoring aren't profitable if you account for the opportunity cost of the materials used to level them. Transmutation used to be a money maker, but since the nerf it's just a convenience. Cooking is questionably profitable, especially with the recent change to food costs.

Every crafting skill has fixed costs and variable costs.

Fixed costs are the training costs and recipe costs. To be profitable, the margin of the activity needs to compensate for the materials (variable costs) and the fixed costs. The problem with most crafting skills is that the margin is so thin that it's often negative. Cooking, for example, used to have decent margins. Now the only profit comes from work orders, and it just isn't worth the time compared to another activity. I say that it's arguably profitable since every character needs some level of cooking, so it's a skill that you're going to level anyway.

Toolcrafting and blacksmithing are perhaps the least profitable. Leathercrafting and tailoring benefits from some good-value work orders, but even then, the margins aren't great when you consider the alternative of just selling the raw goods. Even then, it'll take less than five minutes to find someone that will craft whatever you want, provided you have the materials -- you get the items for the work order, they get the xp, but you pay none of the fixed costs involved in that exchange. There are no leather or cloth goods that can be produced for less than what a vendor will pay, so work orders are the only choice.

[Tagamogi]

Leatherworking, toolcrafting, and tailoring aren't profitable if you account for the opportunity cost of the materials used to level them. Transmutation used to be a money maker, but since the nerf it's just a convenience. Cooking is questionably profitable, especially with the recent change to food costs.

At least for leatherworking, the leveling material cost is zero as long as you are willing to wait on work orders that match your current skill level. You still have to train the appropriate recipes, but given that medium to high level leather work orders make you thousands of councils per order, I don't think the training costs are a big concern.

Tailoring and toolcrafting are a bit more iffy since there are fewer work orders for them, but if you are willing to level slowly, they are not that expensive to level and the higher level work orders pay out quite a bit, even though their effort/reward ratio is less awesome than leatherworking's. Technically, you can also get an infinite supply of tailoring materials, as long as you are willing to spend the time to farm up the cotton yourself. (Possibly worth mentioning - I'm talking about leveling a skill as opposed to learning all available recipes. There a many lower level tailoring recipes I haven't learned yet and buying them all is definitely more in the fun money sink category.)

In my opinion, transmutation is a money maker just because it allows you to compress loot into fewer slots. The items themselves will sell for more than phlog, but if you are in the middle of a dungeon and out of room, phlog is better than not being able to pick up anything new.

Cooking ... I think it makes you money if you enjoy gardening. Since I don't like gardening that much, this was possibly not my best profit pick. ;) The cooking work orders pay ok if you consider the base costs of the materials, but it can take quite a bit of effort to get everything collected.

[sudostahp]

At least for leatherworking, the leveling material cost is zero as long as you are willing to wait on work orders that match your current skill level. You still have to train the appropriate recipes, but given that medium to high level leather work orders make you thousands of councils per order, I don't think the training costs are a big concern.

Tailoring and toolcrafting are a bit more iffy since there are fewer work orders for them, but if you are willing to level slowly, they are not that expensive to level and the higher level work orders pay out quite a bit, even though their effort/reward ratio is less awesome than leatherworking's. Technically, you can also get an infinite supply of tailoring materials, as long as you are willing to spend the time to farm up the cotton yourself. (Possibly worth mentioning - I'm talking about leveling a skill as opposed to learning all available recipes. There a many lower level tailoring recipes I haven't learned yet and buying them all is definitely more in the fun money sink category.)

In my opinion, transmutation is a money maker just because it allows you to compress loot into fewer slots. The items themselves will sell for more than phlog, but if you are in the middle of a dungeon and out of room, phlog is better than not being able to pick up anything new.

Cooking ... I think it makes you money if you enjoy gardening. Since I don't like gardening that much, this was possibly not my best profit pick. ;) The cooking work orders pay ok if you consider the base costs of the materials, but it can take quite a bit of effort to get everything collected.

You're ignoring opportunity costs when you say that cooking can make money if you enjoy gardening. You can make far more just by filling work orders for beets, barley, and corn, than you will trying to add value with cooking. Cotton is the same. You're going to make more selling raw cotton than you will by filling work orders for tailoring gear.

Great cloth pants pay 17,680 for 10. We'll ignore the industry bonus to work orders for now. That's 1,768 per pair of pants. How much does that pair of pants require to make?

2 redwall crystals, let's assume you get a good deal at 100 each.

Check my math here. This is a list of the components for that pair of pants. It's going to take 8 carded cotton, 6 perfect cotton, and a couple spider webs. The webs are negligible.

Let's assume you get lucky with the perfect cotton and get more than you will, statistically. That leaves 8 carded cotton, at 4 cotton a piece, so 32 pieces of cotton. A stack of cotton goes for 4k, so about 40.4 each. 32*40.4 = $1293. + 200 for the gems, so 1493. That leaves you with a profit of 275, or 235 if you count the cost of spider webs. That's 235*10 pants, so your profit is $2,350 every 30 days for that work order, and that's generously assuming that you get 6 perfect cotton for every 8 carded (which isn't going to happen in the long run). You're literally losing money on the opportunity cost of just growing more cotton. And considering it's a level 60 skill, you still need to pay off the fixed costs of training and the recipes. You lose money doing this, even with the industry boost.

Ninja Edit: It's totally fine if someone does this because they enjoy crafting and it's close to breaking even. In some cases, it's going to be worth it for the synergy point(s), but many crafting skills aren't an efficient use of time if you're looking to make cash. Look at brewing, I've plowed countless hours and close to a million (literally) councils into it. I think it's fun, and you've got to spend your cash somewhere.

(adjusted for item amounts)
Fine Cotton Yarn x2
--Carded Cotton x2
--Perfect Cotton x2
Coarse Cotton Yarn x1
--Carded Cotton x1
Voile Muslin x2
--Coarse Cotton Yarn x2
----Carded Cotton x2
--Cotton Thread x2
----Fine Cotton Yarn x2
------Carded Cotton x2
------Perfect Cotton x2
----Spiderweb x1
----Perfect Cotton x1
Cotton Thread x1
--Fine Cotton Yarn x1
----Carded Cotton x1
----Perfect Cotton x1
--Spiderweb x1
--Perfect Cotton x1

[Tagamogi]

You're ignoring opportunity costs when you say that cooking can make money if you enjoy gardening. You can make far more just by filling work orders for beets, barley, and corn, than you will trying to add value with cooking. Cotton is the same. You're going to make more selling raw cotton than you will by filling work orders for tailoring gear.

Yeah, sorry, discounting the cost of raw cotton was rather fuzzy-headed of me.

To me, cotton and vegetables are a bit of a gray area - I'm used to games where basically nothing you can do will prevent you from losing money when leveling crafting, either because of NPC material costs or because the materials are so rare that farming them yourself is unreasonable. Since gardening is a semi-crafting skill that allows you to get what you need in a somewhat decent time frame, I'm willing to let skills that depend on gardening materials slide a bit - you would definitely make more money if you stuck to just gardening, but you are not going to be automatically x amount of money out of pocket just for the privilege of leveling the skill.

But yes, for a proper cost calculation, the market cost of cotton should be counted. My math there doesn't line up with yours, though - I think you are forgetting that you get 4 cotton thread per combine and 2 fine cotton yarn per combine? Either that, or I'm skipping something - trying to count the correct number of combines needed is pretty rough.

Looking at the great cloth pants work order, I get:

10 cloth pants =

20 gems

20 fine cotton yarn = 10 carded cotton + 10 perfect cotton ( since each combine makes 2)

10 coarse cotton = 10 carded cotton

10 cotton thread = 2.5 fine cotton yarn + 2.5 spider web + 2.5 perfect cotton ( since each combine makes 4)
= (rounded up) 2 carded cotton + 5 perfect cotton + 3 spider web

20 voile muslin = 20 coarse cotton yarn + 20 cotton thread
= 20 carded cotton + 5 fine cotton yarn + 5 perfect cotton + 5 spider web
= (rounded up) 23 carded cotton + 8 perfect cotton + 5 spider web

So, total is
20 gems = 3000 councils ( redwall crystals @150 each)
8 spider web = 320 councils
45 carded cotton
23 perfect cotton

With the master level carded cotton recipe, it takes you 4 cotton per combine. I don't think a 50% chance to get perfect cotton is unreasonable, but for easy math's sake, let's say it takes me 50 combines to get the carded cotton plus perfect. That's 200 cotton, worth 8000 at 40 each.

So, total work order cost = 3000 + 320 + 8000 = 11320 councils

You cannot do the great cloth pants work order until you get industry levels that give you a 10% bonus to all work order, so the minimum the work order will pay is 19448, and possibly more if you are turning it in on a workorder bonus weekend.

Profit = 19448 - 11320 = 8128

Considering all the effort involved, if all you want is money, it would be faster if you ignored tailoring completely and killed some mobs for their loot instead. But I don't think it's fair to call it a money sink. If you do the two greath cloth work orders for 2-3 months running, you should recoup the cost of training the recipes and unlocking tailoring past 50, and turn ins after that point are profit. (You still need to get to 50, but theoretically your lower levels can be funded by very slowly doing work orders in a similar manner. )

Leatherworking is even nicer since you can easily grab piles of skins off the NPC vendors and there are more lw work orders per level.

[sudostahp]

Yeah, sorry, discounting the cost of raw cotton was rather fuzzy-headed of me.
Profit = 19448 - 11320 = 8128

Considering all the effort involved, if all you want is money, it would be faster if you ignored tailoring completely and killed some mobs for their loot instead. But I don't think it's fair to call it a money sink. If you do the two greath cloth work orders for 2-3 months running, you should recoup the cost of training the recipes and unlocking tailoring past 50, and turn ins after that point are profit. (You still need to get to 50, but theoretically your lower levels can be funded by very slowly doing work orders in a similar manner. )

Leatherworking is even nicer since you can easily grab piles of skins off the NPC vendors and there are more lw work orders per level.

Good catch on the combines. My math was definitely off a bit. Math is hard. I should've used a spreadsheet.

So it turns out this work order isn't too bad, and with the industry bonus, can net about 8k. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it's 16k for both great cloth work orders every 30 days. Is it worth the effort vs just farming another four stacks of cotton? I don't know. Maybe it's worth it for some folks.

[Tagamogi]

So it turns out this work order isn't too bad, and with the industry bonus, can net about 8k. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it's 16k for both great cloth work orders every 30 days. Is it worth the effort vs just farming another four stacks of cotton? I don't know. Maybe it's worth it for some folks.

Hm, if you do tailoring vs cotton farming, I think the time involved in making 10 pants is less than the time to grow 2 stacks of cotton. Of course, gardening also allows you to grow all kinds of vegetables in the same time, so it's hard to come up with a good equation.

I'd agree tailoring is not the most efficient way to make money. I was more objecting to the "money sink" phrase. If you happen to enjoy crafting, it's a pretty pleasant way to make a bit of spare cash. (Basically all my money comes from work orders, primarily leatherworking. I don't play that much, so being able to turn in work orders every 30 days works fine for me.)

[Crissa]

Game markets are nothing like RL ones. Only basic supply/demand...
This is just flatly untrue. Supply and Demand is only one f many balance point in economics, it's the most very basic of economics, not a cornerstone. It can even have inverse relationship in different real life markets; some things really are cheaper to supply the more demand there is and some things reduce demand by being in supply. Look up Veblen goods and economies of scale.

[Atis]

This is just flatly untrue. Supply and Demand is only one f many balance point in economics, it's the most very basic of economics, not a cornerstone. It can even have inverse relationship in different real life markets; some things really are cheaper to supply the more demand there is and some things reduce demand by being in supply. Look up Veblen goods and economies of scale.

Where did Veblen write about ingame economics? Nowhere? Though so.

IRL economy stuff is mostly not applicable to MMOs, and even when something is applicable, it's so distorted that learning from it would make a disservice to player.


It's about time you stop arguing with yourself about IRL economics, none is interested. This is topic about INGAME market.

[Mikhaila]

I'll go back and read the last few posts, this is quick before i go off to work:

Supply and Demand. These still rule 'economies' even game economies.

What players really want is 1) a way to craft and sell 2) a way to gather and sell to crafters 3) reasons for crafting the items. (If it's crap in the endgame, why make it?)

By limiting players to only 1-2 craft skills you negate their need/want to level up those skills. And wow, does leveling up those skills create demand. Look at cotton, do you ever see much for sale? I can grow my own cotton and yet buy every stack i see for 4k. Would anyone do cheesemaking if they only had 2 slots for crafts? nope, and stomaches would be worth 100 not 1000 and in demand. Would you level butchering if you couldn't sell stomaches? :)

And would you keep playing the game if you ran out of things to do? Doing all these skills keeps players in the game. And being in the game means they need to earn money, buy stuff to level crafting, and o lots of different skills.

Plus, the idea of a limit on skills means a re-write. It takes 2 skills to even start tool crafting. And because of recipes many skills have soft pre-requisites for needed products. Needed products that in some cases no one is going to make.

I've got a Masters Degree in Mathematical Modeling and Statistics. I've owned gaming stores for 30 years. I look and tear apart every game i've played to figure out game economies. And I'd say that currently the economy in PG is quite healthy. One of the easiest ways to see that is the constant demand for items, and the shortages. There is ZERO reason to start tweaking things now when we haven't even seen what the economy can do. You could ruin something that is working.

Learn all you can about the machine before you start pressing buttons.

[Roekai]

the economy seems fine to me, but what do i know, im just a level 75 / 75 nobody who is always broke buying shit from other players (mostly expensive food)

[Crissa]

Atis Is that even supposed to make sense? All player actions in games are metered by economic principles. There is nothing in games which aren't economics!

Mikhaila Very good points; although an argument could be made that constant shortages and resistance in trading are features of an unhealthy market.

I think the bigger problem is information asymmetry and the difficulty in actually dealing with other players. Finding the shop you want in the pile of shops is really painful; I really do wonder if anyone makes back their coin in the second room. There is a quantifiable benefit to being in the first room.

(Also, it's just painful to try to walk from one seller to another. I really really wish the player character would path around the displays and other NPCs.)

[Tagamogi]

By limiting players to only 1-2 craft skills you negate their need/want to level up those skills. And wow, does leveling up those skills create demand. Look at cotton, do you ever see much for sale? I can grow my own cotton and yet buy every stack i see for 4k. Would anyone do cheesemaking if they only had 2 slots for crafts? nope, and stomaches would be worth 100 not 1000 and in demand. Would you level butchering if you couldn't sell stomaches? :)


That is an excellent point I hadn't thought of before. With everyone having the ability to try out all skills, the market for crafting materials is certainly much, much bigger than it would be otherwise.

My own argument on why unlimited crafting skills are good is more about variety = fun: If there was a limit to how many crafting skills can be learned, the skills would need to be balanced, otherwise everyone would pick the 2 profitable skills and ignore the rest. (Or be upset they are stuck with a gimp, non-money-making skill.) Our current system allows for silly or money sink skills that people can level if they think the skills are fun and they can still participate in the crafting market with other skills if they choose.



I think the bigger problem is information asymmetry and the difficulty in actually dealing with other players. Finding the shop you want in the pile of shops is really painful; I really do wonder if anyone makes back their coin in the second room. There is a quantifiable benefit to being in the first room.
I usually figure everything's in the first room is overpriced and start looking in the second and third rooms. ;) I run a mini-vendor in the third room on occasion and I always sell out. I wouldn't make a profit if I did it more than 1-2 times a month, but I don't think the location is the problem. I've gotten to a point now where I know who has good prices and look specifically for those stores.

[Mikhaila]

Atis Is that even supposed to make sense? All player actions in games are metered by economic principles. There is nothing in games which aren't economics!

Mikhaila Very good points; although an argument could be made that constant shortages and resistance in trading are features of an unhealthy market.

I think the bigger problem is information asymmetry and the difficulty in actually dealing with other players. Finding the shop you want in the pile of shops is really painful; I really do wonder if anyone makes back their coin in the second room. There is a quantifiable benefit to being in the first room.

(Also, it's just painful to try to walk from one seller to another. I really really wish the player character would path around the displays and other NPCs.)

Actually, I see constant shortages as a healthy market. As a player, when I see constant shortages I think "opportunity" and "i should be selling that".

And there is a big benefit to being in the 2nd and 3rd room. There is a lot more turnover in vendors and new stuff to buy. Many of the vendors in the first room simply have exactly what they had the day before, and some are dead empty all the time. These are older players with enough money that they don't care about selling, just holding a spot. I run through all the vendors at least once a day. Twice or three times is because there are things i need and hope they put more in their stock. I often skip the first room entirely the 2nd or 3rd round of the day because I know what is there. Prices are also highest there.

[fellentier]

Actually, I see constant shortages as a healthy market. As a player, when I see constant shortages I think "opportunity" and "i should be selling that".

And there is a big benefit to being in the 2nd and 3rd room. There is a lot more turnover in vendors and new stuff to buy. Many of the vendors in the first room simply have exactly what they had the day before, and some are dead empty all the time. These are older players with enough money that they don't care about selling, just holding a spot. I run through all the vendors at least once a day. Twice or three times is because there are things i need and hope they put more in their stock. I often skip the first room entirely the 2nd or 3rd round of the day because I know what is there. Prices are also highest there.



^ This guy markets

[Crissa]

I usually only ever find what I'm looking for in the first room.

[Atis]

Crissa

Is that even supposed to make sense? All player actions in games are metered by economic principles. Just not the same way as IRL, despite your hundredth attempt to bring in economics 101 in MMO.

[Celler]

I opened a store for maybe 4 days about a week and half ago. To be honest it's never really appealed to me, I can make money other ways if need be.

I set up in back room and thought I'd just offer some simple stuff I have lots of at cheap prices to help the newer folks that have joined.
I also crafted a fewer high end foods and alchemy recipes to see how they would do. Have to say despite what some would say was a bad spot my shop did way better than I expected.

Unfortunately my low priced wood and strange dirt's did nothing to help the newer folk instead were bought up in mass by other players like myself.
Not complaining it was short sighted of me not to realize that is what would happen. It maybe nice to have a max 5 per customer option though.
I was very surprised to receive in region of 50 - 75k per day.

I would of kept shop open for a few more days but i didn't seem to get the offer to renew daily rent, but that was probably an oversight on my part.
It would be nice to pay many days in advance, for example buying the space for a week.

To my small band of customers I thank you for your Shekels, C.T.I may at some point reopen.

[Mikhaila]

A real life situation: I own gaming stores for he last 30 years and run used game auctions. People toss me all the stuff they don't want from old Warhammer models, boardgames, unpainted or partially built models. Whatever they want to get rid of. I then do a live auction and sell it all off in a day. They are tricky events to run, but i'll skip advertising and mechanics and talk about the two major things I have to get right every time.

-Enough people have to put items into the auction. I have to have things to sell, and if nothing is on the list, people don't show up to buy. Not enough stuff to buy and the events start collapsing as no one shows up.

-Enough people have to show up with money in their pockets to buy things. If not enough show up, the items go for very little, and the next time around no one puts things in for sale.

I need both seller and buyers to make my auctions work. Two weeks ago a 100 people showed up and paid 10,000 dollars for 535 lots of used games. Both buyers and sellers were happy. Game economies are sort of similar. You have to have people who think it's worth while to sell, and worthwhile to buy. The measure of success is both how many people participate on each end, and how many councils are spent each day.

[Tagamogi]

Unfortunately my low priced wood and strange dirt's did nothing to help the newer folk instead were bought up in mass by other players like myself.
Not complaining it was short sighted of me not to realize that is what would happen. It maybe nice to have a max 5 per customer option though.

That is a really cool idea. I like it.



I would of kept shop open for a few more days but i didn't seem to get the offer to renew daily rent, but that was probably an oversight on my part.
It would be nice to pay many days in advance, for example buying the space for a week.
Being able to pay for the shop multiple days in advance is a feature of a higher level retail management skill although I'm fuzzy on the exact formula. I think I can 2 or 3 days around retail management 30...

If you are just starting out, you get an option to re-rent the stall 1-2 hours before it will shut down. Or you can rent it again after it already shut down, and your entire setup from last time will still be there (unless you did a stall cleanup via Selphie, of course.)

A week in advance is probably a bit much - some shops clean out very fast, and it's a bit depressing from a customer perspective to look at a stall that has had an empty inventory for days. (It would be nice if there was a way that shops automatically displayed if they are empty or, even better, when they were last updated with new inventory.)

[Crissa]

Is that even supposed to make sense? All player actions in games are metered by economic principles. Just not the same way as IRL, despite your hundredth attempt to bring in economics 101 in MMO.
Weirdly economics goes past '101'. But the same principles work in the same way iRL and games. People are people, markets are markets: No two are the same.


it's a bit depressing from a customer perspective to look at a stall that has had an empty inventory for days. (It would be nice if there was a way that shops automatically displayed if they are empty or, even better, when they were last updated with new inventory.)
Very true! Perhaps what we need is a flag 'Close store when empty' or 'Close store when n% has sold'. Something that some packed markets do is have waiting lists: You pay for a slot on a waiting list, and if a slot opens up, your get to use it - but only until the guy who's slot it is comes back. That would give more turnover, which I think the market needs to encourage.

But I'd really like to see more... Information? Could we have a sign that says who rented what sorts when and with what items? I wouldn't mind looking up a list, and then walking over to the booths to check their wares. (Especially if pathing were improved!) I like that there's graphical indications but there's just no graphic that'll scream 'this guy has prisms'.

[Mikhaila]

I decided to open up a vendor and see how things went. Double edged sword: It's easy for me to set up and manage a store like this. I've done it in many games, but also have run retail stores for 30 years in real life. So there isn't a lot of 'thrill" in selling stuff :)

-Store is in the C area.
-Just stocking odd stuff, mostly from the cold areas i'm hunting in. Black Soup, lichen, silver, wood, winter clothing, ice cores, some extra sulfur and saltpeter, leather rolls. Fully half the stuff i put up for sale is easily found on vendors at a bit higher price.
-Sold 100,000 in stuff in 3 days.

I'm going to try and put some more odd bits and pieces up as i get time, and focus on items lower level characters could easily get.

[Mikhaila]

So after a week or so, my rent is climbing, and so are sales. Any silver, lichen, sulfur, saltpeter, wood, slabs, winter gear, ice cores sell out. I sold about 100k in stuff yesterday. Some of that was from farming the level 30 goblin dungeon to learn goblinese, other stuff from kur. Really just anything that seems useful in some way. The fact that it's all selling is a nice indicator of how the economy is progressing. Nothing like an influx of new people to stimulate things.

[IndigoBlue]

So after a week or so, my rent is climbing, and so are sales. Any silver, lichen, sulfur, saltpeter, wood, slabs, winter gear, ice cores sell out. I sold about 100k in stuff yesterday. Some of that was from farming the level 30 goblin dungeon to learn goblinese, other stuff from kur. Really just anything that seems useful in some way. The fact that it's all selling is a nice indicator of how the economy is progressing. Nothing like an influx of new people to stimulate things.

I'm about a weeks away from opening a shop as a trial, and after reading this thread I have this to say:

In most of the games I have played, hardly anything was worth selling to other players until "level 50'ish", or even popular mats were going fairly cheaply. Case in point, Elder Scrolls Online (which I will play again eventually, when I need a break from PG). Players can learn all tradeskills on one character, but low level mats sell the best because your harvest progression scales to your level and you can never go "back". In addition, gear lower then 160 (where the current gear cap is), doesn't sell. Not looted or crafted. Just an example. Anytime a new update to the game comes out, some players make huge amounts selling the shiny new items. But otherwise, I'd say the economy on the NA server is not as healthy as it is here in PG. I played for a year and only made 2 million gold (probably spent about 1 mill on tradeskills and misc stuff).

Perhaps being new gives some of us a different perspective, or maybe not. But I visit the vendor building every other day or so, and go through all 4 rooms. From my view, stuff must be selling, because there are certain things I NEVER find...gems (any), being an example. Cotton (I would not mind buying a couple stacks just for giggles) being another. I usually spend 2-3 days just finding a few amethyst. (Should be able to find those with Survey pretty soon, I hope).

And finally, I appreciate @Mikhaila (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?u=2727)'s updates about having a shop. I've been dying to test this out in PG, and it looks like even at lower levels, it does work.

[Mikhaila]

Your right, Indigoblue, stuff is definitely selling. I'll see someone with 20 stacks of cotton, and i'll grab what i can afford, and it's not there an hour later. A vendor will have several dozen of each gem, and then nothing. I never see slabs for sale (Which is why i'm working surveying and mining. Just tossed up a stack of slabs today to see how it goes.) I have limited slots so I only put up 2 sets of winter gear per day, and it's almost always sold out. And little things like cinamon, mint and cooking ingredients.

As more people get up in levels things may change. But right now it's a sellers market

[IndigoBlue]

Your right, Indigoblue, stuff is definitely selling. I'll see someone with 20 stacks of cotton, and i'll grab what i can afford, and it's not there an hour later. A vendor will have several dozen of each gem, and then nothing. I never see slabs for sale (Which is why i'm working surveying and mining. Just tossed up a stack of slabs today to see how it goes.) I have limited slots so I only put up 2 sets of winter gear per day, and it's almost always sold out. And little things like cinamon, mint and cooking ingredients.

As more people get up in levels things may change. But right now it's a sellers market

Just re-read this again and am confused about something....re: Slabs - Maybe I haven't read the right area of the Wiki yet, but I have access to Tadion's training list, and I don't see any slabs on it. How are you making slabs? Maybe there is another NPC I should be talking to? I want to maker slabs, darn it.

Sorry for the off-topic question.

[PlannedLycanhood]

You get slabs from surveying (mining).

[Mikhaila]

Just re-read this again and am confused about something....re: Slabs - Maybe I haven't read the right area of the Wiki yet, but I have access to Tadion's training list, and I don't see any slabs on it. How are you making slabs? Maybe there is another NPC I should be talking to? I want to maker slabs, darn it.

Sorry for the off-topic question.

Start doing surveys, which leads you to mining and geology. I worked mostly on mining so far. Eventually you can do much harder surveys called "motherlodes" which lead you all over Kur and Ilmari trying to pin them down. It's really the only way (other than purchasing from another player) the metals you are going to need for blacksmithing and toolcrafting.

[IndigoBlue]

Start doing surveys, which leads you to mining and geology. I worked mostly on mining so far. Eventually you can do much harder surveys called "motherlodes" which lead you all over Kur and Ilmari trying to pin them down. It's really the only way (other than purchasing from another player) the metals you are going to need for blacksmithing and toolcrafting.

Thanks for your reply. The way I read it, it sounded as if your slabs were coming from another source. I've been way, way too busy with other stuff to mine, but I am level 10 mining I think. I'll be getting back to that in another 3-4 days hopefully.

Spent Sunday 4/8 getting to level 25 in Industry, and registered with the Shop NPC.

Everything I've been doing the last few days has been related to a sudden inventory storage problem among all my 4 characters.

And here is something I want to say about the Vendor Shop (and the Player Work Order board)

As a newbie who has few tradeskill mats but tons of tradeskill mat NEEDS, I've been very frustrated. It takes a looooong time to view every single vendor in the Marketplace, to find NOBODY is selling what I need (copper ore, anyone? or butter muslim (1 vendor had that).

What should newbies in my position do? Post every little need they have on the Player Work Order board? And never mind the 2 item limit.

[Tagamogi]

I never see slabs for sale (Which is why i'm working surveying and mining. Just tossed up a stack of slabs today to see how it goes.) I have limited slots so I only put up 2 sets of winter gear per day, and it's almost always sold out.

Ok, where is your shop and what times do you restock, so I can start camping it? ;) Metal slabs are indeed hard to find - I tend to snap up all lower levels as I see them. I have seen people sell masterwork metal slabs before, and those actually seem like they stay in the shop for a few days before someone buys them. Not sure if that means they are too high-level, too expensive or people don't mind running their own Ilmari surveys.

Anyway, I'm still curious about the time/profit ratio involved: How long does it take you to farm up items to restock your shop, or are you just putting up things you'd normally vendor? When you say you sold 100K - what part of that is profit over the vendor price? Just wondering... I'm definitely willing to believe that running a shop is quite profitable these days.



As a newbie who has few tradeskill mats but tons of tradeskill mat NEEDS, I've been very frustrated. It takes a looooong time to view every single vendor in the Marketplace, to find NOBODY is selling what I need (copper ore, anyone? or butter muslim (1 vendor had that).

What should newbies in my position do? Post every little need they have on the Player Work Order board? And never mind the 2 item limit.

Well, in practical terms I'd recommend: Do mining surveys and you should get copper ore as a speed bonus. Level up your textile creation until you can make butter muslin, it's worth it. You can also try asking in the Trade or Help channels - if you explain you are a new player, I think quite a few people would be willing to help you out. I don't think either of them are worth posting a work order for unless you are looking for 10-20 each or more.

I realize that answer is not at all what you are looking for and is counter to the game's recommendation of "focus on only one trade skill at a time". As things are though, nobody seems to like doing mining surveys, and both metal slabs and ore seem to be in continually short supply. Butter muslin is a bit of a different story - there are plenty of players that can make it but since it uses cotton and the muslin itself is not going to have a huge profit margin, most higher-level players will not bother putting it up. Personally, I will occasionally put up butter for sale but not butter muslin since if I'm going to go through the hassle of making muslin, I'd rather use it to level my own cheesemaking by whatever minimal degree. I don't really know what a good solution to this would look like.

[sudostahp]

Two things are becoming increasingly annoying as our new friends expand into the retail space:

1) I'd kill for a search feature. It sucks that I need to open each vendor one at time to find a specific item. I've gotten in the habit of just going to the back room to check a few, then giving up. Since all but a few stalls are now booked, there's a lot of ground to cover.

2) What's up with the consistently empty vendors? There are some vendor stalls in prime areas that just sit empty for days.

And as a bonus, I hope that the dancing buff glitch gets fixed soon. I'm sure that would cut down on the "parked" vendor stalls.

[Crissa]

2) What's up with the consistently empty vendors? There are some vendor stalls in prime areas that just sit empty for days.That's simple: You buy space ahead of time and the vendor doesn't close shop just because you're empty.

Also, you lose your spot if you give it up.

[Atis]

Weirdly economics goes past '101'. But the same principles work in the same way iRL and games. People are people, markets are markets: No two are the same.

Exactly, ingame market is not the same as IRL one, so stop trying to explain PG market with some book that never took MMO markets into account.


you lose your spot if you give it up.
Usual problem for limited market space. Imagine what would happened if PG was even slightly popular. Vending spot would be a privilege.

[IndigoBlue]

Two things are becoming increasingly annoying as our new friends expand into the retail space:

1) I'd kill for a search feature. It sucks that I need to open each vendor one at time to find a specific item. I've gotten in the habit of just going to the back room to check a few, then giving up. Since all but a few stalls are now booked, there's a lot of ground to cover.



THAT would help everyone, including newbies who need 3 of one random thing for a NPC quest (as apposed to actual tradeskill needs that come up unexpectedly).

But yes, a search feature on a sign when you walk in the door. And if nothing else, the station ID # so that the vendor can be found, and the quanity of said item that is available.

We already know something like this works because you can search the Player Work Order Board. I do of course, understand that doing this with 45 vendors whose POS is more complicated..well that's something else.

[datar]

Citan has wrong impression that ability to search the market kills prices and the market itself. Would love to discus it, but my poor language skill makes it very expensive for me....

[Tagamogi]

Two things are becoming increasingly annoying as our new friends expand into the retail space:

1) I'd kill for a search feature. It sucks that I need to open each vendor one at time to find a specific item. I've gotten in the habit of just going to the back room to check a few, then giving up. Since all but a few stalls are now booked, there's a lot of ground to cover.

2) What's up with the consistently empty vendors? There are some vendor stalls in prime areas that just sit empty for days.

And as a bonus, I hope that the dancing buff glitch gets fixed soon. I'm sure that would cut down on the "parked" vendor stalls.

On the empty vendors: Some of them may also just sell out very fast. There is a gem shop in the first room that's been empty most of the time over the last 2-3 months, but I have been able to find gems at @180 a couple times there when I checked. Understandably, those get snagged up very fast.

I'm not sure if a fix to the dancing bug would make a significant impact on the camped stalls - some players may just figure all their money will get wiped eventually anyway, so they might as well max retail management now and/or enjoy their vanity stall.

I'm getting to the point where I'd like a search feature, too, but I also don't want anything resembling an auction house. Brainstorming on a couple search-like ideas:
- be able to search on an item and get a response of whether it is on sale anywhere, possibly with the location
- have the first item in each player shop show up in a search, with shop name and possibly price. I'm basically trying to avoid having a mass-undercut competition on everything with that limit, while still allowing searchers to get some idea of what a shop may be selling without actually walking over there.
- along similar lines, we could have a directory listing of all current vendors and their first item currently on sale, available for browsing by everyone
- have shop keepers pay to advertise 1-3 of their current items in a directory list or search feature. If an item is sold, it will no longer be listed.

None of these may be particularly good ideas. :D

[Crissa]

Exactly, ingame market is not the same as IRL one, so stop trying to explain PG market with some book that never took MMO markets into account.
This refers to what and adds what to the conversation? O-o

It's like trying to talk to someone in the Austrian School yet demands specific markets be covered. It's so bizarre.

MMO markets - and this isn't even an MM - aren't in any way unusual compared to all other markets.

[Khaylara]

Citan has wrong impression that ability to search the market kills prices and the market itself. Would love to discus it, but my poor language skill makes it very expensive for me....

I don't think that's true unless Citan said that somewhere and I missed it. He added search function for inventory/storage, the game's still in development and he knows we need a way to find an item especially when all vendor rooms will be fully rented

edit-game market related I think a forum trade section would be beneficial especially for items hard to sell like gear, for example I have excessive amounts of good UA/mentalism gear but they sell very slowly or don't sell at all so I can't afford to keep a shop open. I'd post it in the trade section and see if anyone needs it. Since on forum we can private message even someone who's offline (just an example, I don't remember what gear I have xD)

edit2-tbh I know Citan doesn't want a trade broker/auction house but the current system feels like a dysfunctional trade broker anyway. People still undercut, buy cheap and sell expensive etc. I would centralize it for ease of access, create one trade broker NPC and keep the consignment system for the odd item here and there. No need to discuss a trade broker btw, Citan made it clear he doesn't like the idea but I thought I'd mention that it feels like almost the same thing anyway, just much harder to search

[Mikhaila]

Citan has wrong impression that ability to search the market kills prices and the market itself. Would love to discus it, but my poor language skill makes it very expensive for me....

Citan is correct. Both in theory and in practice. If a product has a good supply, price will be driven down. A player can see the lowest price and will of course prefer to buy it at the lowest. Merchants understand this, and selling something for less profit is better than not selling anything at all. It works in MMO's where players can see the data, it started int he real world with the internet, and it's expected buyer/seller behavior. It also allows the build up of resistance to paying a higher price for goods, even when there isn't a lower price available. Players wait for someone to put more up for sale. Only if an item is in high demand and buyers want it immediately do we see prices stay higher.

You need two things to have an economy: buyers and sellers. While I'm absolutely sure buyers would be happy to have a great search function, (and some even want delivery! ) this won't be good overall for the game economy. Anything that has sufficient supply will see prices drop. On the other end, rare items will be bought up by sellers if under priced, and they'll list the item on their own vendors at higher prices, and prices will go up on those.

[Mikhaila]

Ok, where is your shop and what times do you restock, so I can start camping it? ;) Metal slabs are indeed hard to find - I tend to snap up all lower levels as I see them. I have seen people sell masterwork metal slabs before, and those actually seem like they stay in the shop for a few days before someone buys them. Not sure if that means they are too high-level, too expensive or people don't mind running their own Ilmari surveys.

Anyway, I'm still curious about the time/profit ratio involved: How long does it take you to farm up items to restock your shop, or are you just putting up things you'd normally vendor? When you say you sold 100K - what part of that is profit over the vendor price? Just wondering... I'm definitely willing to believe that running a shop is quite profitable these days.





Low level slabs suffer from a couple of things. The first is that players would rather do Motherlode surveys in Ilmari than Kur. Cold is more difficult to deal with than thirst. Flat is easier than mountains. Kur involves a lot of running around obstacles, up and down cliffs, using water breathing potions for the large amount that seem to generate offshore. Ilmari is mostly running in straight lines and avoiding static mobs. In Ilmari you'll get speed bonuses, in Kur it will be rare. Secondly, players level mining up quickly, and would you rather hunt for slabs worth 10 or 50 councils each, or 150 and 200? A player can run some Ilmari surveys and sell to a vendor and be done. To make money on Kur surveys you need to be selling those low priced slabs for a lot more than basic value to players that need them.

I prefer Kur to Ilmari, but if I just want to spend an hour making a bit of cash, i'll be in Ilmari.

As to what I'm selling and where I farm, it's mostly Kur and Gaz. I really like the look and feel of the cold areas, and since the rest of you hate snow, i have a lot of it to myself :) I grew up in the Sierra Nevada, I like snow and mountains. Currently in Philadelphia and the entire state of PA is way to fething flat for me. Closest I get to mountains is in PG :). I tend to just accumulate things as I run around: Wood, silver, gold, tundra lichen, hides, saltpeter, notus books, explosive runes, wolfsbane, metal slabs. I turn the hides into winter clothing. Dump to vendor, collect each day. My profit margin over just vendoring things is probably around 50%. But that also means I'm not using up vendor cash pool, which we all know is an important resource. I max out most of the vendors each week and dump a lot of stuff to favors to gain more places to sell. So having a player vendor stall is a huge bonus. It also means daily trips to the market to restock, so a bit of work. Used to it. I merchant in most games i play, do ebay at home, and have owned game/comic stores for years and sell a lot of collectibles.

[Crissa]

Citan is correct. Both in theory and in practice. If a product has a good supply, price will...
Not exactly. Yes, he's constraining the supply with the stalls. But the cost of the time and effort to search through those stalls limits the demand. Limit demand, and you've dropped the multiplier.

The cost of the stalls also raises the floor of the market. Yes, the market works for sellers now, because there are enough determined buyers. But it doesn't work for buyers, who end up spending far longer than the sellers, in the market.

Anyhow, right now it's just a matter of being clumsy. It's not going to kill the market. Yet.

PS: I find thirst easier to manage. A stack of water that I can drink on the run and oasis I can jump into is easier than constant ticking cold.

[Asashoryu]

A comment I made in another thread, that seems more appropriate to expand upon here:


Ideally something similar to how the storage bookshelf in Serbule functions for storage should be implement to search across and allow purchase of all player vendor and consignment items 'in zone'. Serbule returns from such a "broker" wouldn't need to match similar searches in Serbule Hills or Eltibule, but I shouldn't have to waste a hour running around to several dozen player vendor stalls and NPC consigment vendors trying to find something that might not even be up for sale.

Imagine a "broker" NPC that's present in various cities and villages. Through the NPC, a player can search across all player-vendored items in the 'zone', whether sold by player vendor or by consignment. From that, a player could choose to have the NPC 'locate' the vendor (some iteration of map marking, glowy navigation line, whatever.) allowing them to run directly to the source, or buy it on the spot with an added "broker" fee applied to each item so purchased.

These "broker" NPC services might be gated behind favor and/or relevant skills (perhaps having Industry at a certain level to use the service in Serbule, Gardening past a threshold to use a similar farmer NPC acting as a "broker" in Serbule Hills, or being in Animal Form to use the Raven NPC acting as a broker in Sunvale. Perhaps race factors into it in some areas, with biases presented as increased "broker" fees, or barriers to access. Favor and/or Industry levels could further reduce the "broker" fee imposed for clicking 'buy it now', as it were.

Aside from making markets more accessible, while not outright eliminating some amount of segmentation (per zone), such a system would make it so more than just the first room full of vendors on the right are worth their rental fees, and also allow greater visibility of limited, specific items sold via NPC consignment prior to players having sufficient industry skill to employ a player vendor.

[Mikhaila]

The assumption that just the first room on the right are worth it is just false. Many people actually say they skip the first room and go to the 2nd and 3rd, since the vendors in the first don't refill/change stock much. Once you know who sells what, and who is continuously empty because they just use a vendor for storage, you don't need much in the first room. I could have easily moved my vendor to the first room and didn't. I'd rather be in the third room.

[Mikhaila]

Not exactly. Yes, he's constraining the supply with the stalls. But the cost of the time and effort to search through those stalls limits the demand.

Some people actually don't mind going stall to stall. It's called shopping :) You see different things, get an idea of what different people are selling. Prices are different on different vendors, so it can be a bit of a treasure hunt. Some people don't like it, others don't mind it.

It could be made less clunky, i agree. And is not helped at all with the lag in Serbule.

[ArkadyRandom]

The entire player market system frustrates me. It feels overly complex and convoluted to me for complexity's sake itself. There are too many steps and clicks to get and find what I want. Figuring out how to try and participate in the selling aspect is not fun.

I don't like having to manually go to each stall, but if the system must be that way, make it easy to get in and find things quickly so I can move on to the next.

The quest notepad is sufficient for keeping notes on who sells what at a price, but there should be something better. If there is no broker system (EQ2) or AH (LotRO) then the player stall system should be fun. There should be tools to help both buyers and sellers. The idea is to move items from people who don't want them to the players that do. The current system seems to put up frustrating roadblocks to that goal.

[Crissa]

Some people actually don't mind...
I didn't say no one was shopping. Clearly some people are. But that's also economics: As the market is crowded, or difficult, more will opt out. I think Citan is choosing this intentionally, by making it difficult, that means only people dedicated to their task will do their shopping.

I'm not sure it would really stop someone focused on buying low and selling high or cornering the market; but it does raise their 'cost' of doing business.


It could be made less clunky, i agree. And is not helped at all with the lag in Serbule.
Yeah.

One thing I'd like is better pathing. If I'm clicking on a stall to look at it, it wouldn't be all that difficult for my character to path around the displays (and even between other players) to look at the next store. I wouldn't even mind if my character used walking speed to do it.

A second thing would be to highlight the stalls that have the item I'm looking for. Who has food? Food I haven't eaten? Who has prisms? Who has skins? Books? Clothes of my level that I can wear?

There's some ways this can be done. A board listing or slash command; vendors could 'shout' (use some sort of tell system) that shows up on players' Nearby or Combat messages; glowing highlights or markers. The icons on the ground are a start, but I don't know what most of them mean. I think right now they're random, but they could be useful for this in the future.

I think Citan's experiment is fascinating, and although I don't like the market as is, it seems to be functioning right now (vendors are being utilized by players and selling out their inventories). And that's awesome. (And why I like PG. It just does things differently. Experimentally.)

ArkadyRandom I think you hit on it: The system should be fun.

Right now, shopping, I don't feel fun, I feel frustrated as I try to navigate through the maze of vendors and players and lag.

[Mikhaila]

Crissa: I said "some people don't mind". I agree with you, you absolutely did not say "no one is shopping". And you shouldn't imply that I said you had said that.

I specifically tried to make my comment neutral. "Some people don't mind" mean't exactly that.

I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm just trying to put forward a different point of view.

[Crissa]

Mikhaila There's always 'some people'; it's a sliding scale of how much difficulty that every person will accept. And how often. Some don't use the easiest markets. Some will always use the market exclusively. It varies. So it ends up being some sort of curve ^-^

Didn't mean to imply you meant the opposite. Apologies.

I meant to say that the market seems to be working the way Citan wanted, despite the difficulties. Shops are being filled, shops are being sold out. And that experimentation is awesome ^-^

[Atis]

This refers to what and adds what to the conversation? O-o

It's like trying to talk to someone in the Austrian School yet demands specific markets be covered. It's so bizarre.

MMO markets - and this isn't even an MM - aren't in any way unusual compared to all other markets.

They absolutely are. They are as close to real markets as MMO healthcare to real one. In both cases wolf jumping on humans head is health hazard but consequences and ways to fix them are different. Same with market, supply/demand law is same, the rest - isnt.

[IndigoBlue]

Not sure what changed this last week or so, but I've been unable to find an available empty shop to hire. Every station in the entire building has been in use since Sunday, 4/29.

I've checked in the morning, the afternoon, and the late evening. Zip, Nada, Nothing.

[Mikhaila]

It's been up and down a lot, but did have a very high fill rate at one point. What happened is Steam. That big population came in, and in true game fashion asked "How do i make money". The reply is "work orders and surveying". Put those together and you suddenly have a huge number of new merchants trying to sell stuff, dozens with gems, and spaces filling up.

A few more things that will happen:
-As time goes on, many won't have enough to sell to pay the the daily rent as it climbs. There will be more turnover.
-Gem prices will continue to tumble as the market over saturates and people start competing.
-Cries of "what else can I make money on?" will be heard. The easier to get these items, the more there will be for sale, and the price will drop. No examples being given, don't want to influence my guesses.
-Some people will drop out as the luster of "omg i'm selling things!" wears off and "this ...is a job" takes over.

I'm in the latter group :) I can stock my shop and make a profit of more than 7k a day, but it's work. I need to be on every day, I need to restock morning and night. Probably should start selling things that stack and have high value vs single slot.....maybe gems! ..oh, wait.... :) Mostly I need a break and just spend a lot of fun ours in Gaz and Kur having fun. Easier to open back up with stacks of things and able to not worry about how much I sell for a week.

[IndigoBlue]

I am happy to report that I was able to nab my previous shopkeeper NPC this morning, after I posted.
Mikhaila - About restocking

I know what you mean. I sold all my extra stock in 2 days, with my very first shop. Of course, I was foraging and crafting during those 2 days, but by the time I was finally ready to open my shop again, no spaces were available.

I want PG to be fun. I want to die of hypothermia in Kur, and dehdryation in the (cant recall the name) desert zone. I want to forage in Eltibule and mine in Serbule. (I'm still about 10 levels too low for Kur, not that I am paying attention). But gosh darn, now I'm sure that if I don't keep my shopkeeper, somebody else is going to snap her up. I can't log in every day right now, so heck, I'm just not going to worry about it.

The only problem is having the space to hold stacks of stuff while waiting for a shopkeeper to be available. I'm about 800 points from having storage with Tadion (OMG FINALLY), and when I get that, the mule toon who HAS been holding all my to-sell stacks is going POOF. I hope I'll have enough space to old about 12 stacks of whatever that will end up as shop inventory.

[Mikhaila]

Another good trick for storage is crates. I've been working carpentry and after I craft gear to fill up a vendor, if I have extra i dump it to the crate. Make a new crate when i need to load it to the vendor. Storage with Tadion though, is a big thing to work towards.

[Crissa]

Same with market, supply/demand law is same, the rest - isnt.
Come back when you get past microeconomics 101, please. Supply and demand isn't what makes a market, but merely two of many facets of the market (Much of which is actually sociological in nature, expectations, history, etc.)

Every market is different in some way. Online markets are no different. There's nothing particularly unique about in-game markets except that devs actually control the raw material prices and often the labor cost is very low. Making the shops something you have to click through and mining something you have to run and do in-game are ways the devs are adding to the labor costs. The actual market mechanics are the same as any market 'real' or 'virtual'. (Most 'real' markets (measured via GDP transferred) are run in virtual space anyhow now).


Mikhaila Good observations on the wave of population having an impact, then aging, then having their expectations change. ^-^

A crate is a good idea. You only need the fancy crate to put things in, not take them out... I wish there were a way to make stacks auto-stack, tho.

[HardRock]

This thread should be deleted as it is no longer pertinent, and slightly cancerous.

[Vertabreaker]

i have had success with my shop it seems rather simple i start with 2x the base for common items and if they dont sell i reduce them but no lower then the base. for rare items i try to go with the norm and put a slight reduction on them so far i cant keep the store stocked and i play like 16h a day.