Business And Economy Archive
Thread: Proposal for New Structure Ranch, and Economic and Game Benefits
Shadine
Thu Jan 27, 2005 7:11 am
#14
First of all, this is to simplistic which is why it recieces so many flames.
First ranch types:
Small Ranch: costs 2 lots, 10 power/hour, maintenance would be 30credits/hour, have a large footprint say 3 by 4 blocks.
Can only raise small to medium herbavoires. (hurrton size)
Medium Ranch: costs 4 lots, 25 power/hour, 60 credits/hour, footprint 4 by 5 blocks
herbavoire up to large (seething bol size), small to medium carnivores
Large ranch: 6 lots, 50 power/hour, 90 credits/hour, 6 by 6 footprint
Herbavoires up to giant size (say pickets or fulmpasats), carnivores up to large
now above and beyound the power & maintenance you would need to provide food.
if you are raising herbavories this means grains & vegtables. Carnivores means meat and lots of it.
Also there is an amazing thing that people forgot. WATER! everything needs water.
Now for the fun parts: Rangers or creature handlers need to capture(ranger)/tame(creaturehandler)the wild creatures to use in these ranches.
when introduced into these ranches how well they do is dependant on Creature knowledge. So ranger and scout will still make a difference in this process.
Captured creatures will not breed well in captivity but will still produce the higher qualitity resources similar to the wilds
Tamed creatures will produce domsticated products that are not as potent as the wild versions.
Last but not least. Creatures may not thrive well in a farm if the planet they are on in the farm differs from the planet they are native too.
This should provide enough of a balance to not only make ranger/scout types useful in these endeavors but also still be able to just hunt to make money.
My last question to you all is what is a Nerf and where can I get one. I wanna be the first to wear a Nerf Herder title.
BleuDestiny
Thu Jan 27, 2005 12:17 pm
#15
Game needs work, ladies and gentlemen. Game needs TLC. People leaving game. Game in trouble. Devs so uptight about future of game they hire 20 people to breathe life into it. Can you read between the lines? Can't blame everything on SOE, peeps need to be constructive here and be cool with each other, raise the bar on helping the game survive.
Let's treat each other with a little respect. Rather than trash an idea because you don't understand it, how about taking a moment to try to understand it? Or, if you don't care either way enough to stop to give it consideration, move along and find one that you can be constructive with.
I'm reading alot of these replies and thinking, "they don't understand, they're not trying to understand." I'm reading alot of these replies and saying, "they don't get it."
It's a good idea that would have good impact on the game, for good reasons. It's funny that some people don't take the time to see what someone else is saying, or to challenge what they dont understand, to gain more understanding. Rather than view something from a narrow perspective, at least start out by saying, "this person is trying to accomplish something, what is it? This person thinks this is a good idea, why do they think that?" When you can say, "ah I see what they're saying, but I'm still concerned by this consequence or that, and I don't see that covered or addressed," then fine, say that...
Communication lessons over.
The idea has merit, and has a lot of pro's, and does not eliminate the scout profession. It just balances it out. It helps balance out hyper economies and too many zero's in prices. There's merit here. Look for it, and challenge it reasonably.
Message Edited by BleuDestiny on 01-27-2005 11:20 AM
BleuDestiny
Thu Jan 27, 2005 12:19 pm
#16
I don't recall in the communication trying to impact the "fun" of the game, other than maybe the fun in communicating with people who are challenged to communicate and stay on point. Look back to the stated pros and cons in the thread. Focus.
BWVictorious wrote:
Whats fun about that?
Ledao
Thu Jan 27, 2005 12:22 pm
#17
Phaelyn wrote:
Ledao wrote:
- BIG SNIP -
To your "weak arguments" comment, in the two threads that you've created on this issue, I have not seen you present a single argument for the necessity, or even viability, of your idea. You have asserted that "prices are too high" and that "hunters have a monopoly on creature resources",and have made no attempt that I cansee tosubstantiate either premise.
Not to troll, but I tried pointing this out in the previous thread, and got soundly told I was wrong on 2 points. I asserted that it wasn't the Hunters but the Crafters that created the price disparity. For some reason, some buffpack makers cling to the hope that by outbidding everyone else, they will get all of the resource. Problem with that is, as I pointed out, that it is essentially an Unlimited market. True, Spawns have a set duration, but even with that limitation millions of units could be harvested. Once buffpack makers realize that if they all refused to pay 200 - 250cpu for the product, the market would settle to a lower level. It's not as if the Hunter goes out and hunts, and then holds a pack over a buff maker's head and says "Pay me 250cpu or I destroy this stack" - Quite the opposite. The hunters generally see a Spam at a certain CPU for a certain named resource, or they see it on the forums. They think to themsleves "Hmmm - 250cpu - i'll harvest that for a while". The same would be true if the offer was 50cpu across the board. On the Radiant trade forums, a good spawn was under way, and one maker plead for his fellows not to drive the price above 180, to stop there and make it market price. Know what happened? Someone bid it up to 300 eventually, and that became market price, forcing all the others to match or not get their meat. Did the hunters make that happen? (Meanwhile, our Guild at the time was giving the same resource to our Doc for only 20cpu. Once he got enough, he said to sell to others for profit)
As far as the idea being viable - I could actually see a form of it working. However, it would need to be very immersive, and very restricted in order to not eliminate the need for hunters. Not just 1 or 2 professions to build and or operate, but many. And definitely not a set BER like the Harvesters - Some Dev would have to sit down and calculate what a single hunter couldrealistically harvest in aspawn period at an average playing time per day, and base final output on that number. Using the BER as it stands now,just 20 - 30Ranches operating at BER 4would generate MILLIONS of units in excess resources. result: Market dies completely, and Hunters are a thing of the past.
And, finally, to your "produce enough to craft with" comment: that isjust not true. In one buff session, with a toon with a 4th-tier novice combat skill, anyone can get enough Avian meat to make 350 or 400 buffpacks. If you aren't selling 'em on a vendor, that would take most people 6 months to use. For that matter, I'm still using a batch of buffpacks that I made for myself (with meat that I harvested myself) in November -- of 2003. The only people that should be paying forcreature resorucesare those who intend to sell the resulting product. (and this -- of course -- does not apply merely to avian meat...)
And I'll bet at that time, there was no price disparity, so final costs were drastically lower as well.
Message Edited by Ledao on 01-26-2005 07:49 PM
Here's the thing: Buffpack makers (or any other sort of crafters) can't merely "refuse to pay 200-250 cpu", because the amount they pay directly impacts the total amount of the resource harvested.
All crafting professions are competing with each other, as well as with the mission and loot systems, for hunters' time. If the crafters set the price too low, no one will be induced to go out hunting, the overall supply of the resource in question won't meet the demand. Similarly, if the crafters set the price too high, the overall supply (by which I mean every unit of the resource harvested on the server) will be too large, and the crafters have to absorb the risk of something better spawning.
So, whenever a new resource spawns,before I set the price I think about how much of the resource I'd like to get, and what proportion of the hunting community I need to be working on it to get me that amount. For instance, right now I have a 75 cpu offer open for Lokian Avian meat. No one else is buying it publicly, so I'm probably getting 80% of the server's supply. I won't exceed 200k units of it, either, which is fine, because it's only of limited use. At that price, the smart hunters are out on Yavin hunting carnivore meat for the chefs, since although the CPU is lower, the yield is significantly higher.
On the other hand, we had a best-ever herbivore spawn on Lok a couple of months ago. The "going rate" shook out to be 85 cpu, which is just obscene given how easy that stuff is to harvest. Sure enough, every hunter on the server was out there harvesting it for the length of the spawn. Every Doc on the server was competing to buy it as well, so I'd say that my take was more like 30 or 35% of the server's supply. Even so, due to the high price, I pulled in over 2 million units.
As youshould be able tosee, then, there isn't anything likewhat you seem to mean by"price disparity". Avian meat prices are higher than Carnivore or Herbivore meat prices because the yields are lower, because birds aren't any fun to hunt, and because they don't drop any loot.
The economy is a system, wherein all of the different ways for a combat character to make money relate to each other. In November of 2003, for instance, yes we could pay 50 or 60 cpu for Avian meat and expect everyone on the server to be out there harvesting it for us, because at that point we weren't competing with the chefs or bio-engineers -- if the armorsmiths weren't buying hide, we were the only game in town. That is just no longer the case...
And, to your final comment, actually my costs are not dramatically different today than they were in November '03. They might actually be lower, in fact, since at that point extractable resources were much harder to come by -- and if they had been out of spawn for a couple of months they were vastly more expensive than they are now. My server went through a time when Dolovite iron was scarce and expensive, another time when our only decent Class 4 petro was 100+ cpu, and so on and so forth. Now, due to the remarkable ease of extracting huge quantities of things, we have best-ever resources 6 months out of spawn selling for under 6 cpu.
BleuDestiny
Thu Jan 27, 2005 12:24 pm
#18
Things need to be simplistic, or conceptual. There's no point into getting into too many details where SOE's design team is concerned, that's for them to hammer out the details with some input and feedback. All the work you wrote up is valid points, not sure i agree with the big nerf bat you took to it, in fact I don't. Apply the same rules to harvesters, but ok. What your work did do was show how some peeps here like to flame instead of going thru the exercise of taking a concept and working with it to see how it would fit in the game, what challenges and opportunities it brings to the game, and how it benefits. Good for you that you have that discipline rather than just trashing a concept that has merit.
Shadine wrote:
First of all, this is to simplistic which is why it recieces so many flames.
BleuDestiny
Thu Jan 27, 2005 12:32 pm
#19
Ledao wrote:
BleuDestiny wrote:
LOL, those are some weak arguments. Back to the proposal, and real pros and cons... let it rip. Every other resource in the game is attainable by any profession, its called a harvester. Except meat, hide, and bone. The only way to produce enough tocraft with, when combined with the other harvested resources (which seem to somehow work in the economydespite the aboveweak arguments), is to buy from many many peeps. There should be alternatives tothis just like ANY OTHER RESOURCE. LOL. Look at the greater good of thegame. Armor sets, buff sets, food crates, everything we use every day need not have 5, 6, or 7 zeros in it's price tag, making for a ludicrouscircus of an economy. Givethe idea some objective and thoughtful consideration. Get on out of that box and think about the potential for the game overall.
Message Edited by BleuDestiny on 01-26-2005 06:51 PM
The point -- that you're either missing or ignoring -- is that creature resourcesare the limiting factor in production (Yes!!!);withoutsuch limitationthere would be no economy at all.(False, read on)
A Doc, for instance, can only produce as many enhance packs as he or she has Avian meat for -- the avian meat is the limiting factor. Without this limitation (or, if you prefer, assuming that Avian meat could behad at a comparable rate to other extractable resources), the market would flood immediately, and crafters would go out of business... (OMG YES!!! You've got it!!!, but what's next???)
YES YES YES You're absolutely right....
YES !!!
But then what happens next??? Just like what happened with shipwrights when everyone became one....
Many people dropped out of the profession...
So then what happens...
There's more customers to the people who stuck with it...
And then what happens...
Equilibrium... where the prices have come down, because there's now alternative, ie. multiple (hunters, ranches) sources of the limited goods, to keep prices in check, and that suppliers have reached a level where the amount of business (sales) suppliers, merchants, crafters, is in check with the amount of demand....
Oh yes thank you for at least getting part of the way down the path in this process to correct all the extra zeros in the prices today because of the sole source of creature resources that creates an ecomonic monopoly or chokepoint. Options, alternative sources, create balance and lead to economic equilibrium....
Woot.
Message Edited by BleuDestiny on 01-27-2005 11:34 AM
Ledao
Thu Jan 27, 2005 12:56 pm
#20
BleuDestiny wrote:
Ledao wrote:
BleuDestiny wrote:
LOL, those are some weak arguments. Back to the proposal, and real pros and cons... let it rip. Every other resource in the game is attainable by any profession, its called a harvester. Except meat, hide, and bone. The only way to produce enough tocraft with, when combined with the other harvested resources (which seem to somehow work in the economydespite the aboveweak arguments), is to buy from many many peeps. There should be alternatives tothis just like ANY OTHER RESOURCE. LOL. Look at the greater good of thegame. Armor sets, buff sets, food crates, everything we use every day need not have 5, 6, or 7 zeros in it's price tag, making for a ludicrouscircus of an economy. Givethe idea some objective and thoughtful consideration. Get on out of that box and think about the potential for the game overall.
Message Edited by BleuDestiny on 01-26-2005 06:51 PM
The point -- that you're either missing or ignoring -- is that creature resourcesare the limiting factor in production (Yes!!!);withoutsuch limitationthere would be no economy at all.(False, read on)
A Doc, for instance, can only produce as many enhance packs as he or she has Avian meat for -- the avian meat is the limiting factor. Without this limitation (or, if you prefer, assuming that Avian meat could behad at a comparable rate to other extractable resources), the market would flood immediately, and crafters would go out of business... (OMG YES!!! You've got it!!!, but what's next???)
YES YES YES You're absolutely right....
YES !!!
But then what happens next??? Just like what happened with shipwrights when everyone became one....
Many people dropped out of the profession...
So then what happens...
There's more customers to the people who stuck with it...
And then what happens...
Equilibrium... where the prices have come down, because there's now alternative, ie. multiple (hunters, ranches) sources of the limited goods, to keep prices in check, and that suppliers have reached a level where the amount of business (sales) suppliers, merchants, crafters, is in check with the amount of demand....
Oh yes thank you for at least getting part of the way down the path in this process to correct all the extra zeros in the prices today because of the sole source of creature resources that creates an ecomonic monopoly or chokepoint. Options, alternative sources, create balance and lead to economic equilibrium....
Woot.
Message Edited by BleuDestiny on 01-27-2005 11:34 AM
Shipwright is a different and unique case. The limitations on factory production of SW goods keep a single SW from dominating the market, and the huge resource requirements also help.
Doctors, Armorsmiths, and Chefs suffer no such limitation. The supply of creature resources *already* exceeds the demand (to say nothing of the supply of extractable resources -- I usually shoot for 6-8 million units of those when they spawn). This is why large crafters, like me, have enough inventory to continue our present rates of production for months or years without bringing in any new resources.
If you want to "correct all the extrazeros" in the economy, you need to start at the beginning -- with the various ways that credits enter the economy. Hunting isn't one of 'em. It really shouldn't be difficult to grasp that as long as someone can make 250k credits per hour by running missions, they need to be able to make at least that much by hunting in order for it to be viable.
As fully half of the people in this thread have mentioned, allowing creature resources to be pulled out of the ground would simply kill off the hunting community.
At any rate, the number of zeros in and of itself has absolutely nothing to do with anything. The "equilibrium" of which you speak already exists, it just exists at a higher level than you'd like it to. The reason has nothing to do with the hunters themselves, except insofar as they (like everyone) can be expected to act ina manner which maximizes their self-interest.
IndustryAndGuild
Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:57 pm
#21
Bunk. That's not true. If everyone made armor, nobody would be able to make a living, much like what we just experienced with shipwright. Everyone went shipright. Not enough customers to go around, cant support the pricing, so in the end, alot of peeps gave up shipwright. Equilibrium.
Prices come down when creature resources are more plentiful. The ones that are serious about their professions will continue with their trade and their reputation, and their customers.
Poldano
Thu Jan 27, 2005 5:01 pm
#22
I think this could be done without eliminating the usefulness of (or need for) Scouts and Rangers, and without making uber-production easy.
1) Make multiple ranch structures, perhaps one for each type of creature. The structures take lots, and can "contain" limited numbers of creatures, which take time to reach marketable maturity.
2) Make ranching an occupation that benefitsfrom the use of Scout and especially Ranger skills. This would work especially well for open-range ranches for herbivores. Herbivores might require protection from carnivores, which have to be hunted by players (or player employees) to manage herd predation.
3) Ranching cannot produce all varieties of creature product. This leaves a niche for hunters, especially for creatures on the higher end of the scale.
4) Make ranches more like a type of city, in that each one has to be a minimum distance from another one, and from cities, and controls a certain territory around it. This potentially requires a Rancher profession, but the ability could be added to, for example, Master Scout. Specialized ranch buildings could be placed only in the area controlled by a ranch, and ranch owners could restrict placement of structures by having the equivalent of zoning rights for their ranch areas. However, all ranch buildings should take lots, just as harvesters and factories do.
5) Possibly, progression in skill (possibly Ranger) or experience (new type of ranching experience) enlarges the area that can be controlled by the owner of a ranch.
Comments, disses, one-stars, etc. welcome.
Saego Kennar
RedDestinyCC
Thu Jan 27, 2005 5:08 pm
#23
Forget it...
Message Edited by RedDestinyCC on 01-27-2005 04:09 PM
Crizis
Thu Jan 27, 2005 5:12 pm
#24
I'm sorry, but that's just misinformation and an exaggeration to an extreme to make a shaky point, I'm not even close to buying this. Will it have an impact? Sure, reasonably asdescribed in these posts. The gloom and doom you describe? Absolutely not, and someone saying such a thing should feel goofy for thinking people would buy it.
Ledao wrote:
BleuDestiny wrote:
[...]
I'm reading alot of these replies and thinking, "they don't understand, they're not trying to understand." I'm reading alot of these replies and saying, "they don't get it."
It's a good idea that would have good impact on the game, for good reasons. It's funny that some people don't take the time to see what someone else is saying, or to challenge what they dont understand, to gain more understanding. Rather than view something from a narrow perspective, at least start out by saying, "this person is trying to accomplish something, what is it? This person thinks this is a good idea, why do they think that?" When you can say, "ah I see what they're saying, but I'm still concerned by this consequence or that, and I don't see that covered or addressed," then fine, say that...
[...]
Message Edited by BleuDestiny on 01-27-2005 11:20 AM
Just so I'm sure we're on the same page, let me try to lay it out...
You are trying to lower the price and increase the availability of creature resources.
It has been argued to the contrary that this change would a) destroy the hunting community (or the scout and ranger classes, whichever you prefer), and b) destroy crafting markets that are dependant on the supply of creature resources. It has also been argued that the change that you propose is flawed in that it attempts to make a pricing change too far up the economic chain.
Further, your premices (1. shortage of supply; 2. "inflated" price) have been attacked as false, with detailed support provided.
Even if your conclusion necessarily followed from your premices (which I don't think it does), the whole argument is moot if the premices themselves are invalid.
Message Edited by Crizis on 01-27-2005 04:13 PM
Ledao
Thu Jan 27, 2005 5:25 pm
#25
Crizis wrote:
I'm sorry, but that's just misinformation and an exaggeration to an extreme to make a shaky point, I'm not even close to buying this. Will it have an impact? Sure, reasonably asdescribed in these posts. The gloom and doom you describe? Absolutely not, and someone saying such a thing should feel goofy for thinking people would buy it.
Ledao wrote:
Just so I'm sure we're on the same page, let me try to lay it out...
You are trying to lower the price and increase the availability of creature resources.
It has been argued to the contrary that this change would a) destroy the hunting community (or the scout and ranger classes, whichever you prefer), and b) destroy crafting markets that are dependant on the supply of creature resources. It has also been argued that the change that you propose is flawed in that it attempts to make a pricing change too far up the economic chain.
Further, your premices (1. shortage of supply; 2. "inflated" price) have been attacked as false, with detailed support provided.
Even if your conclusion necessarily followed from your premices (which I don't think it does), the whole argument is moot if the premices themselves are invalid.
Message Edited by Crizis on 01-27-2005 04:13 PM
No, that's a summary of what's been discussed.
Read the whole thread: detailed explanations have been presented by myself and others.
It isn't a stretch at all to say that if creature resources could be extracted like chemicals, minerals, and flora the scout and ranger classes would be largely superfluous.
As for the part about crafting markets, I explained that in detail on the first page of this thread. For my part, if I could pull as much Avian meat from a spawn as Fiberplast or Wheat, I could produce enough buffpacks in the next month to supply my whole server fora year. Think about what production like that would do to the economy. Imagine trying to break into a market dominated by someone who has millions of units of the best avian meat ever to spawn.
(moreover, if I could "ranch" my creature resources, I would be done spending money. Permanently. Think about that...)
And really, rather than calling me names and asserting that you don't buy the points that I've summarized, why don't you offer some reasons to the contrary?
Message Edited by Ledao on 01-27-2005 04:32 PM
Message Edited by Ledao on 01-27-2005 04:37 PM
Phaelyn
Thu Jan 27, 2005 6:30 pm
#26
Ledao wrote:
I agree with mosteverything you've said, except the actual numbers (and I certainly don't think the average yield over timefor herbivore meat is 2x that of avian meat -- I'd say more like 4x, which would affect your numbers significantly). I always think about creature resource pricing in terms of credits per hour, so we're both on the same page there...
What I meant by the "fun" comment is that no one (in my experience at least) hunts avian meat for fun or for experience, while some people do hunt other meats for those things. That is an artificial factor that keeps the prices of the other meats down... Although I certainly agree that *most* hunters will hunt whatever is most profitable, the fact is that we're dealing with people, who are not perfectly rational agents.
Although, aside from that, it is also necessary to account for mission payouts...
At any rate, if you're correct, and Avian meat is really the highest paying thing to hunt by a wide margin, it is only a matter of time before the supply starts to exceed the demand, and the price begins to drop.
Really, though, I disagree with your assertion that a hunter would make more hunting 150 cpu Avian than 75 cpu herbivore meat. In fact, having hunted both of them extensively, I'd say 75 cpu herb meat (unless it's on corellia or talus) yields roughly double the payout of 150 cpu Avian meat (even before accounting for mission payouts). I've pulled in well over 40k units of herbivore meat hunting by myself for 1 buff session -- my record for avian meat iscloser to10k.
At what level/profession? I based my example on what I, ay novice scout pulled down on average during our Guild's fund raising efforts. Avian I was harvesting at 14-17 per kill, the herbivore I was geting at 22-47 per kill. I averaged accordingly. Certainly a full blown Ranger will increase those yields, but from what I understand, the Avian would only go up slightly, and the herbivore (as a larger creature) goes much higher.
And youhavea 6 month out-of-shift *extractable* resource selling for 285 cpu? Is it a jedi resource? What I meant by that comment, btw, is that when a best-ever resource spawns, and everyone on the server goes out to mine it, a hundred million unitsmight bebrought into circulation. And it takes a lot longer than 6 monthsfor them all to be used by crafters... So, although certain "under the radar" spawns get expensive, mostextractable resources(even when of exceedingly high quality) stay pretty cheap for a long time now...
It's a copper named Ynesa - One of those rare items that had stats that worked for almost every profession. It was used like mad in everything, and now that schematics still exist with it as the named copper, people need it to finish factory runs.