Architect Archive
Thread: Renewable Income Source Obsolescence ?
This is developed a little from something I have posted in another thread, but I feel it worth starting a new thread for this as an idea in it's own right.
It has occured to me thatwe don't need built in decay, we need obsolescence.
Over time an old model is replaced by a newer, improved model. Nobody has to change what they have, but if they are willing to spend the money they can just get something better.
A new house with more storage (75 items goes up to say 80, a few months later another new one with 90 and so on)
New Harvesters with 11 and 14 BER maxes or increased hopper sizesby design,
Specialist Harvesters maybe for example fpr Steel only(same for other resource types) but with higher extraction rates (maybe they can still pull other resources but only at 70% of the max).
New, faster vehicles with a speed increase of 10pct.
Maintenance could be included in this, maybe lower maintenance costs instead of other improvements for some items, the next 'new' version would then have increased maint again to offset the improvement given, this would 'balance' maintenance rather than forever reducing it until it reaches zero, maintaining a money sink.
This can apply to just about everything in the structure line, so what about furniture ?
Well apart from totally new items of furniture I can still see some improved model possibilities, there are some things that we consider to be broken, but only if we want them to actually fulfill a function.
Lights for example, they cannot be switched on, but a new 'improved' light should be able to, so don't fix the old style, some people are happy with a light just to look like a light, give a new model that can for those who want it.
Same with Armoires etc, any 'storage item' should have new models that can 'store' things the old type will satisfy anybody who just wants aesthetically pleasing furniture.
A bed you can actually lie upon, a couch where more than 1 person can sit, a table you can place things on the list just keeps growing.
The old styles could no longer be available, resulting in a secondary market for 'used' products, like a second hand car market. Nobody makes a 63 chevy anymore, you can still get them if you look hard enough though. 60s retro furniture has a market of it's own. One day that old non-working lamp could be a collectors item that you could auction to buy a new 2-seater X-34 with trunk !
This is how things work in RL, this does not mean that anybody has to buy new, they just choose whether they want to keep up with the latest technology or stick with what they have already got. Imagine the floods of static lot miners beating a path to your door for the latest 14 BER High Capacity Copper Mining Installation, to replace their old style 13 Mineral, just because the 'new kid on the block' has a fleet of 10 of these beauties !
The best thing is that nobody HAS to buy the new stuff, but I am sure enough will.
What do you think ?
Message Edited by Bandola on 02-17-2004 04:33 AM
Fair enough, butthese are merely suggestions of things that could be considered improvements, there are probably many less contentious issues. For example, speed of vehicles was just an obvious thing to look at for what constitutes a better vehicle, there are other ways to improve, like the example of 2 seaters, or vehicles could carry extra items in a trunk. Harvester increased extraction rates can be offset by lower concentrations perhaps, or maybe the improvement comes down to be specialised extractors which can harvest higherrates of only a specific resource as I stated.
I am struggling to see theargument that greater extraction rates creates more money in the economy, as of today there is more money than there has ever been anyway, an economy has to find a balance somehow, even in a game, so we ought to see 'boom and bust' soon enough, more resources from higher extraction should (in theory at least) lead to lower prices according to the supply/demand models. In any case, the resources do not create the money, they are just what it is bought and sold with the credits that SOE has put into the game, extracting a resource does not create money.
So what if people sell there old BER10s, they do that now, the point is that right now they have no need to upgrade from a 13, so once everybody has these (or 10s if they prefer the economics associated with those) then they have the best they can find, and they will have the best available for ever more if things don't change somehow. I am suggesting that the world moves on, technology improves and suddenly there is something better around the corner. And architects can continue to carve out a living.
But OK, maybe the examples are too extreme for you. I am not making a suggestion for exactly what should change, merely a suggestion for a direction that that change could possibly take.