Artisan Archive
Thread: A re-post of an economy crippling bug. (Original post seems to have disappeared.
Page 1 of 5
MinerMighty
Sat Jun 12, 2004 10:42 pm
#1
A repost of one I made earlier. The original seems to have disappeared. (Yes I checked the entire forum, and my PM box to make sure it didn't get moved back or deleted.)
Early on in SWG, I discovered I liked surveying and mining. I was
intrigued by the socio-economic aspect of all these characters wanting
to
make things, needing to mine stuff to make them with, and the market
opportunities availalbe.
I got some harvesters. I sold a bunch of metal. Made a little money.
After being approached by several players who wanted some help with
their
bankroll, I started my own mining company. I lent or leased harvesters
to
penniless beginners, sold their material, paid them well, let them pay
off
their harvesters and then set them up as independent miners. Taught
them
how to survey. I discovered other independent miners and set up a
wholesale purchasing program with them to sell me their stuff. They
mined,
I bought all they made and sold it.
Within a couple of months I had created a family of eight to ten
regular
players who were helping survey, placing harvesters, and generally
involved
in the whole process. Everyone made money. Everyone was happy. We
could
send out an e-mail in our 'company' and have harvesters down on hot
spots
in a matter of a few hours.
All this stopped very soon after the holo-grind started. Prices
dropped
through the floor. I couldn't afford to pay the miners for their
time. You couldn't even sell 980 CD copper for 3cr/u. Prices overall
for
metals and ore are down to about 2.5cr/u. All my guys are unemployed.
Why?
1. The prices are bad because the holo-grind made the artisans into
commandos and the commandos into dancers. Most people want only
grinding
materials, and aren't artisans looking for quality. (That will get
fixed
when the holo-grind stops soon, so that point is now moot.)
2. A major exploit by players who 'bought' or 'borrowed' ten lots each
from dozens of 'non-player 'paper charcters' on other servers. In
particular, on the Intrepid server, Keltrien on Tattoine and Jovve on
Corellia have literally scores of harvesters in giant grids. I
maintain
that it's doesn't fit with the 'reality of an SWG universe for that to
happen. See, those characters don't actually exist, except on paper.
They
don't log in to populate the Intrepid universe and contibute to the
gameplay experience. It's as if the exploit has allowed them to build
a
J.Paul Getty legacy of dead relatives' harvesters to create an instant
empire. It wouldn't happen in a real economic model. And the initial
limit of 10 lots was to prevent this very kind of thing from happening.
What should be done? I have three suggestions, from various people,
all
have merit.
a.) Kill the paper-player effect. Make harvesters and buildings
freeze-up
or go poof if you don't log in on a semi-regular basis. Set a minimum
acceptable level of gameplay and make the harvesters die. It would
force
the outside-server "moguls" to maintain regular contact with and manage
their regular appearances in-game. It would make it difficult as
people
wouldn't want to log into the characters they don't play. The "freeze"
option allows characters to leave the game for an extended period of
several months and come back to have their stuff intact (assuming
enough
maint was paid) but it wouldn't be mining all that time.
AND/OR
b.) Make one administration function -- say power addition which is
excluded by maint. droids -- an owner-only function. Remove the
admin-delegation capability. Harvesters must be owner-operated. Admin
is
only for Operation/Hopper and for Maint. payments.
AND/OR
c.) Make harvester ownership a level-based skill. Survey1 = Personal
Harvesters, Survey2 = Medium Harvesters, Survey3 = Heavy Harvesters,
Survey4 = Ability to open Administrative options on harvesters.
This game is flooded with materials way beyond what the economy can
handle. Too many exploiters are ruining the social commerce aspect.
Make
it challenging again.
BTW, Survey Droids are great. They give you some info, but not too
much.
And the maint. droids are great too.
Pezdah "Don Calamari" Spencer
Calamari Bros. Mining Co.
Coronet City, -500 -3550
Intrepid
intrigued by the socio-economic aspect of all these characters wanting
to
make things, needing to mine stuff to make them with, and the market
opportunities availalbe.
I got some harvesters. I sold a bunch of metal. Made a little money.
After being approached by several players who wanted some help with
their
bankroll, I started my own mining company. I lent or leased harvesters
to
penniless beginners, sold their material, paid them well, let them pay
off
their harvesters and then set them up as independent miners. Taught
them
how to survey. I discovered other independent miners and set up a
wholesale purchasing program with them to sell me their stuff. They
mined,
I bought all they made and sold it.
Within a couple of months I had created a family of eight to ten
regular
players who were helping survey, placing harvesters, and generally
involved
in the whole process. Everyone made money. Everyone was happy. We
could
send out an e-mail in our 'company' and have harvesters down on hot
spots
in a matter of a few hours.
All this stopped very soon after the holo-grind started. Prices
dropped
through the floor. I couldn't afford to pay the miners for their
time. You couldn't even sell 980 CD copper for 3cr/u. Prices overall
for
metals and ore are down to about 2.5cr/u. All my guys are unemployed.
Why?
1. The prices are bad because the holo-grind made the artisans into
commandos and the commandos into dancers. Most people want only
grinding
materials, and aren't artisans looking for quality. (That will get
fixed
when the holo-grind stops soon, so that point is now moot.)
2. A major exploit by players who 'bought' or 'borrowed' ten lots each
from dozens of 'non-player 'paper charcters' on other servers. In
particular, on the Intrepid server, Keltrien on Tattoine and Jovve on
Corellia have literally scores of harvesters in giant grids. I
maintain
that it's doesn't fit with the 'reality of an SWG universe for that to
happen. See, those characters don't actually exist, except on paper.
They
don't log in to populate the Intrepid universe and contibute to the
gameplay experience. It's as if the exploit has allowed them to build
a
J.Paul Getty legacy of dead relatives' harvesters to create an instant
empire. It wouldn't happen in a real economic model. And the initial
limit of 10 lots was to prevent this very kind of thing from happening.
What should be done? I have three suggestions, from various people,
all
have merit.
a.) Kill the paper-player effect. Make harvesters and buildings
freeze-up
or go poof if you don't log in on a semi-regular basis. Set a minimum
acceptable level of gameplay and make the harvesters die. It would
force
the outside-server "moguls" to maintain regular contact with and manage
their regular appearances in-game. It would make it difficult as
people
wouldn't want to log into the characters they don't play. The "freeze"
option allows characters to leave the game for an extended period of
several months and come back to have their stuff intact (assuming
enough
maint was paid) but it wouldn't be mining all that time.
AND/OR
b.) Make one administration function -- say power addition which is
excluded by maint. droids -- an owner-only function. Remove the
admin-delegation capability. Harvesters must be owner-operated. Admin
is
only for Operation/Hopper and for Maint. payments.
AND/OR
c.) Make harvester ownership a level-based skill. Survey1 = Personal
Harvesters, Survey2 = Medium Harvesters, Survey3 = Heavy Harvesters,
Survey4 = Ability to open Administrative options on harvesters.
This game is flooded with materials way beyond what the economy can
handle. Too many exploiters are ruining the social commerce aspect.
Make
it challenging again.
BTW, Survey Droids are great. They give you some info, but not too
much.
And the maint. droids are great too.
Pezdah "Don Calamari" Spencer
Calamari Bros. Mining Co.
Coronet City, -500 -3550
Intrepid
Aradia1
Sun Jun 13, 2004 9:36 am
#2
ICK!!! I don't now or will ever sell/buy lots that are not mine for the char's I play. However idea#1 is good except that sometimes you don't know that you're not gonna be able to log in for months( what if your comp suddenly goes POOF and you don't have the money to fix right then...that could take a while). Idea#2 Seeing as how a lot of people share their harvesters with guildmates/friends etc. b/c they don't always have time to maintain them or they don'tuse all of the resources that might be harvestedthen that wouldtake upa lot of time that they previously spent playing and enjoying the game. Idea#3 THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN AND PERSONALLY I DON'T WANT IT BROUGHT BACK. We are currently redoing our Top 5 b/c it got choked on the harvester cert issue. Let this one go.
The lot trades also happen for many other reasons in addition to havesters. Did you know it takes 8 or 9 lots to place a guild hall and if the guild leader wants to have his own property he/she would have to either buy a second account or do a lot trade with someone on another server.The limit of lots hurts and helps but the suggestions that you came up with for fixing it are not gonna work. And no I don't have any suggestions as to how to fix it...this one simply baffles me.
joined42904
Sun Jun 13, 2004 10:01 am
#3
Miner,
I enjoyed your excellent post. Especially idea #3.
The idea is here to stay. And the only people who can make it go away are the devs by a clear and unambiguous statement on the issue which they have not yet given.
The issue with guildhalls has been previously posted in these forums. Guildhalls are big buildings. They leave the owner enough remaining lot space for a house.
But for some reason I never see the people who are concerned about the effects of this building on the guild owner argue that guild members be allowed to contribute lots toward this structure for the guild for which they are presently a member on a permanent or timed temporary basis that would be made revocable in some way.
The harvester cert issue doesn't "choke" our top 5. It clearly IS one of our top 5 based on the level of interest and comments about it. People discuss their top issues in the top 5 threads. Or is this difficult to believe? All top issues are legitimate for discussion in top 5 threads. Even ones you personally (or I personally) don't favor.
joined42904
Sun Jun 13, 2004 7:38 pm
#5
Maybe it was one-starred. You might want to make sure your settings let you read one-star posts. All kinds of interesting tidbits in posts that folks one-star for various reasons....usually more because they disagree or have their own agendas than because the post is useless or poorly written.
HalasterTheBlack
Tue Jun 15, 2004 9:45 am
#6
joined42904 wrote:
Miner,
I enjoyed your excellent post. Especially idea #3.
The idea is here to stay. And the only people who can make it go away are the devs by a clear and unambiguous statement on the issue which they have not yet given.
The issue with guildhalls has been previously posted in these forums. Guildhalls are big buildings. They leave the owner enough remaining lot space for a house.
But for some reason I never see the people who are concerned about the effects of this building on the guild owner argue that guild members be allowed to contribute lots toward this structure for the guild for which they are presently a member on a permanent or timed temporary basis that would be made revocable in some way.
The harvester cert issue doesn't "choke" our top 5. It clearly IS one of our top 5 based on the level of interest and comments about it. People discuss their top issues in the top 5 threads. Or is this difficult to believe? All top issues are legitimate for discussion in top 5 threads. Even ones you personally (or I personally) don't favor.
No. It is a hot issue for a dozen or so people out of the hundreds who post here and the hundreds of thousands of people who play this game.
A handful of very vocal people does not make a consensus or even a majority.
Give. It. Up.
joined42904
Tue Jun 15, 2004 11:09 am
#7
Halaster,
First of all, thank you for making my one-starred post visible to most people by quoting me.
I will not "give up" vocally advocating change with respect to the cross-lot problem and resource extraction exploits until either the devs say that they have decided that "this is the way it's going to be" (which means I don't waste energy and time by banging my head against a brick wall...or injury to my head for that matter lol) or I move on to another game.
If you read Guruweaver's posts, you will see that our Correspondent believes there are serious issues with resource acquisition. He doesn't necessarily favor certification, which is fine with me. He at least favors some sort of solution. Certification is only one possible solution.
And the devs at least see resource issues as a problem. I don't really care what solution or solutions they pick as long as they pick something that will work and address the problem. I'm not the sort to say "do x in y way" and get upset if things aren't done my way. I'm a bit different a sort of debating opponent that Sinist. 
Why should I give it up? With resource related issues in the artisan top 5...it seems that I am winning. At least as I define winning. (You might define my winning as getting certifications for artisans...I'll let you define victory for me however you like so long as you allot me the same privilege.)
By the way, there were at least 22-odd folks to vote for certification in that flawed poll of Guruweaver's. And I'm not sure that all the present proponents voted.
Scoooter
Tue Jun 15, 2004 11:22 am
#8
joined42904 wrote:
Halaster,
First of all, thank you for making my one-starred post visible to most people by quoting me.
I will not "give up" vocally advocating change with respect to the cross-lot problem and resource extraction exploits until either the devs say that they have decided that "this is the way it's going to be" (which means I don't waste energy and time by banging my head against a brick wall...or injury to my head for that matter lol) or I move on to another game.
If you read Guruweaver's posts, you will see that our Correspondent believes there are serious issues with resource acquisition. He doesn't necessarily favor certification, which is fine with me. He at least favors some sort of solution. Certification is only one possible solution.
And the devs at least see resource issues as a problem. I don't really care what solution or solutions they pick as long as they pick something that will work and address the problem. I'm not the sort to say "do x in y way" and get upset if things aren't done my way. I'm a bit different a sort of debating opponent that Sinist.
Why should I give it up? With resource related issues in the artisan top 5...it seems that I am winning. At least as I define winning. (You might define my winning as getting certifications for artisans...I'll let you define victory for me however you like so long as you allot me the same privilege.)
By the way, there were at least 22-odd folks to vote for certification in that flawed poll of Guruweaver's. And I'm not sure that all the present proponents voted.
Well 22 or so of the proponents voted lol
What about the 160 (maybe 180) that voted no.
Since all that have artisan skills have skin in the game you alianated elite crafters with certs including the elite medical professions so no wonder it was a resounding no.
A solution needs to be found for the issue that does not do an accross the board nerf of the elite crafting professions. To have all of those professions have an interdependecy on the basic need that allows they to craft anything would be bad.
I have said this before
Approach it from the aspect of "Why do elite crafters feel they NEED to mine". Address that and you could probably find a win-win soluition for both sides. Because lets face it the vast majority of crafters dont want to bother with mining. They just want to craft their wares and sell them.
Velisimner
Tue Jun 15, 2004 12:23 pm
#9
not an "economy crippling bug" get it through yer head plz. it may be an issue but they way your goin about voicing yer concern is illadvised.
"Fool of a took!"
HalasterTheBlack
Tue Jun 15, 2004 4:37 pm
#10
Issadra, I don't disagree that cross-server lot trades are a problem. Take a look at my response in the new top 5 thread for all the proof of that you should need.
I do know beyond any shadow of a doubt, however, that harvester certs are A Very Bad thing. I was referring to the notion of harvester certs with my "give it up" statement. It can only hurt the game. If you spent some time exploring the resource economy from the perspective of a large-scale, non-server-trading miner and thought about how certs would impact that business and thereby *all* crafting professions, you might even come to the same conclusion.
To summarize:
Harvester Certs == A Very Bad Thing
Cross-Server Lot Trades == A Very Bad Thing
If a person has cancer, you don't shoot them in the head. You attack the tumor.
I'm sure that we and the devs together can cure the cancer of x-server trades without killing the patient of the galactic economies.
StGabriel
Wed Jun 16, 2004 12:39 pm
#11
If you spent some time exploring the resource economy from the perspective of a large-scale, non-server-trading miner and thought about how certs would impact that business and thereby *all* crafting professions, you might even come to the same conclusion.
While I'm not a cert proponent particularly, I have considered this and I disagree with your assessment of harvester certs. It is important to note that crafters do not exist in a vacuum, they are participants in a larger economy. If large-scale resource becomes more difficult this will simply mean less resources overall. The practical result for this will be a smaller supply and for the same demand. As crafters are those who deal with resources, this market shift will tend to simply create more demand per crafter and increased prices. A crafting utopia is NOT created by easy resource acquisition. The easier resources are to gather, the easier crafting itself is, the more flooded the market becomes and as a result, it is harder and not easier to make a living as a crafter.
While I'm not a cert proponent particularly, I have considered this and I disagree with your assessment of harvester certs. It is important to note that crafters do not exist in a vacuum, they are participants in a larger economy. If large-scale resource becomes more difficult this will simply mean less resources overall. The practical result for this will be a smaller supply and for the same demand. As crafters are those who deal with resources, this market shift will tend to simply create more demand per crafter and increased prices. A crafting utopia is NOT created by easy resource acquisition. The easier resources are to gather, the easier crafting itself is, the more flooded the market becomes and as a result, it is harder and not easier to make a living as a crafter.
CraftDragon
Wed Jun 16, 2004 2:59 pm
#12
"good morning Master Artisan, can you please sir make me a cool speeder?"
Oh I am sorry Mr Customer, I dont have the resources at the moment, and cant find any on the bazaar....so you will have to wait at least 2 weeks for me to mine the stuff I would need.
"But Sir, my speeder was just disabled and I need a new one....do you know any other Artisans who might have a speeder for sale?"
I am sorry Mr customer, I dont, they are all off playing with their Jedi Alts.
The above "future" presented as some would like to see happen.......
Cafa
Wed Jun 16, 2004 3:22 pm
#13
CraftDragon wrote:
"good morning Master Artisan, can you please sir make me a cool speeder?"
Oh I am sorry Mr Customer, I dont have the resources at the moment, and cant find any on the bazaar....so you will have to wait at least 2 weeks for me to mine the stuff I would need.
"But Sir, my speeder was just disabled and I need a new one....do you know any other Artisans who might have a speeder for sale?"
I am sorry Mr customer, I dont, they are all off playing with their Jedi Alts.
The above "future" presented as some would like to see happen.......
Try architect, more true than you think.
The REASON I sell more city structures than anyone else is that I make them on the spot because I have parts stockpiled. That's a fact.
Fivo Asia
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