Business And Economy Archive
Thread: Inflation horrible no money sinks in this game
The demand is still there. Do you think that the 4500 people no longer want the item just because you've raised prices? It's not that people don't want the items. It's that you've priced it more than they are willing, or can, pay. Whether it's because the vendors are empty or the price is too high, all those people still don't have what they are looking for.
Virtuell wrote:
How would these suggestions in any way be of any good for newcomers to the game?
Only rich people would afford to have houses and ships which is not good to segment players
in what can be similar to rich and poor people in America. No fun in that for anyone.
Have you tried playing a pilot? I paid for my SW grind and everything else with just a pilot and i have had fun doing it. You have a lame excuse because i have proven that it is false so many times since JTL came out. Only once have i ever had a 100k in my toons pocket. I never had more than that and i afforded any ship i wanted and needed. Oh, and i didn't get as many credits as i could cause i saved all my space loot to RE. That would have been several mill right there.
As for America, we all have the same damn chance and opporunity to make it rich. Some are just better at it than others. Some of us, are happy where we are, because we know that happiness can't be bought, it has to be found within.Howard Hughs died a sad lonely man and we all know he was loaded to the gills when he died.
Epsilon125 wrote:
How do you think market effect prices. If I can make 50 items a day and sell them for 1000 credits each and I find that demand for the items is 5000 people. There are now 4500 people who want/can affordthe item and cannot get it.
The demand is still there. Do you think that the 4500 people no longer want the item just because you've raised prices? It's not that people don't want the items. It's that you've priced it more than they are willing, or can, pay. Whether it's because the vendors are empty or the price is too high, all those people still don't have what they are looking for.
You basically examine the demand for your product and raise/lower the price accordingly.
In other words, you're maximing profits. You could control demand for your product by letting your vendors empty out so thatpeople stopped coming to them, as was pointed out in other posts. That might not be very smart, but would probably work just as well.
Admittedly it's been a while since I've taken an economics class, but as I remember it, for each price level there was a corresponding number of people willing to pay that price. This is also known asthe level of demand for that product. You lower the price, the demand goes up. You raise the price, the demand goes down.
I think you might be confusing demand for desire. Yes, people might still desire a product they can't afford (or they think is too expensive), but that isn't the same thing as demand.
Raising prices will reduce demand. Raising prices will reduce the number of people buying your goods, meaning you won't have to stock your vendor as much. However, raising prices will not necessarily reduce desire.
Also, raising prices does not necessarily mean you are maximizing profits. Wal Mart makes billions of dollars by being the low price leader. Grocery stores only make pennies on each item they sell. By selling at lower prices, they increase demand, and they sell more. They have veryhigh inventory turnover. And Wal Mart has developed a state-of-the-art distribution system that helps them keep up with the demand...something that crafters in SWG cannot easily do.
So raising prices to reduce demand is a valid practice in SWG (though it wouldn't be in the real world).
Slim Vargo, Corbantis
Message Edited by Leana_Txorana on 06-15-2005 03:34 PM
Seems more like the regular job, than a fun game session to grind pilot to afford grinding other professions. Can't see any lame excuse either since not everyone likes space at all and uses it for transportation only. As far as I know, to get rich rather fast the best way is to go armor- or weaponsmith with some help from guildmates.
Kalano wrote:
Have you tried playing a pilot? I paid for my SW grind and everything else with just a pilot and i have had fun doing it. You have a lame excuse because i have proven that it is false so many times since JTL came out. Only once have i ever had a 100k in my toons pocket. I never had more than that and i afforded any ship i wanted and needed. Oh, and i didn't get as many credits as i could cause i saved all my space loot to RE. That would have been several mill right there.
I think the best money sink would simply be a flat tax on all credits in game.
Something like .25%of your credits you own gets taxed every day (.25%, not 25%).
Problem solved
They could even tweak it to where they decide how much credits they want on the server, and adjust the tax rate accordingly.
How about this idea. We do nothing and leave things as they are since the system WORKS.
FeydmanKassan wrote:
How about this idea. We do nothing and leave things as they are since the system WORKS.
The system "currently" works, however there is a credit cap of 1,999,999,998 per player.
So as long as more and more money keeps flowing onto the economy. Unless they fix it so that you can have more credits than that, eventually all credits will be worthless.
So yourcomment is kinda like saying "Let's not worry about global warming because the polar ice caps are still there."
ForceFielding wrote:
FeydmanKassan wrote:
How about this idea. We do nothing and leave things as they are since the system WORKS.
The system "currently" works, however there is a credit cap of 1,999,999,998 per player.
So as long as more and more money keeps flowing onto the economy. Unless they fix it so that you can have more credits than that, eventually all credits will be worthless.
So yourcomment is kinda like saying "Let's not worry about global warming because the polar ice caps are still there."
Tons of credits leave the game when people quit. Tons of credits are locked up in people's banks, never to be spent. Such credits are effectively taken out of the economy. There are very few people on each server who even come close to hitting the credit cap. All a flat tax would do is make things harder for newbs and poor players. The rich would shrug off a 0.25% tax. Most crafters would simply add the 0.25% tax to the cost of their goods, further increasing the burden on new and poor players.
The system does work. We are not in any danger of credits becoming worthless. And there are already tons of credit sinks in the game.
Slim Vargo, Corbantis
ForceFielding wrote:
FeydmanKassan wrote:
How about this idea. We do nothing and leave things as they are since the system WORKS.
The system "currently" works, however there is a credit cap of 1,999,999,998 per player.
So as long as more and more money keeps flowing onto the economy. Unless they fix it so that you can have more credits than that, eventually all credits will be worthless.
So yourcomment is kinda like saying "Let's not worry about global warming because the polar ice caps are still there."
Uh, actually no that's not what my comment is like at all. Let me reinterate the facts which have been stated over and over and over again in the hundreds of posts on this subject:
1. Credits are NOT infinite, period. Only a finite amount of credits are allowed to exist in the game. The number of credits in the game is the opposite of infinite, meaning that the number of credits in the game is finite, meaning that there will be only so many credits allowed in the game. I don't know how to make this fact any clearer. What this means is that there will NEVER be a situation where EVERY player, or even most players will all reach the cap. It won't happen because the game designers won't allow it and have put mechanisms in place to ensure that it won't happen. Those mechanisms exist as the so-called credits sinks. And yes, theoretically, if you don't own a house, and never spend a dime, you could save up enough to reach the cap. Congradulations, you have now become an credit sink. If you then suddenly decide to spend all of your money it will go into the hands of people who are either less frugal than yourself, or to someone just as frugal. Either way, any excesscredits willend up "out of play" eventually. People have to level, people need transport, people have to fix their vehicles, pay maint etc. It's unavoidable asa practical matter.
2. The existing sinks are sufficient to regulate the flow of credits. If there are somehow too many, the credits sinks go up in priceto gradually drain away the excess credits; too low and the prices can be lowered to gradually allow more credits. It's very simple, really and it works. If it didn't the designers would have simply added more sinks. They have all of the data required to make an informed decision regarding how the economy should be tweaked and they rightly take the long view regarding any changes. Changes to any economic system, even a player economy in a video game, have to be made carefully and in small increments in order to avoid potentially disasterous consequences. Just like in RL.
3. The credits that flow into the economy are not reproducing on their own somewhere like a couple of rabbits. They are regulated by the same designers that regulate their outflow. The designers, using the data they accumulate of months and years, make sure that what goes in balances (more of less) what comes out. Everything in between is up to us, the players. This is as it should be and this is why this aspect of the game works so well. They have a system and they don't muck with it.
Epsilon125 wrote:
Even though you posted generally, you used my psot as an example so I will reply. I think you're confusing the right to buy things with the ability to buy them. In a truely free market, anyone can buy anything. Whether they can afford to buy them it is another question entirely.
If you believe I have in any way advocated artificially lowering prices or capping them in any manner, you have totally misconstrued my posts. If anything, by stating that certain high end items should cost certain high amounts, you are the one putting artificial constraints on the free market.
Items should cost what people are willing to pay for them.
Items do cost what people are willing to pay for them. If I raise my price from 5,000 for a gun to 10,000, people who are willing to pay that price will do so. Those who aren't willing (or able) to pay that price will not. To take your statement to the extreme, people would prefer to pay nothing at all to get the best stuff, if they could. In the absence of the ability to give everyone everything they want for free, whatsomeone iswilling to pay for an item is to a large degree subjective.
Slim Vargo, Corbantis