Business And Economy Archive

I do lot trades. I don't see a problem with it. 10 lots are not enough lots. Storage alone is a problem in the game. Everyone I know needs storage and more of it than say one house will offer. So after several houses for storage a veteran sub you are left bare for lots. Think about those that have placed a guild hall! 6 lots boom. They get the shaft if it were not for lot trades.

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GrafvonSoden wrote:

Dyrty,

The problem is people that are doing this are circumventing game mechanics to get an advantage over those that play "By the Rules".

In this game, everyone has to make a decisions, whether its what combat skills to use skill points on, or how many lots touse for houses, harvesters, guild hall, or whatever. Maybe a better concept should be put in place. For crafting professions, put in more lots for masters etc.

The point I'm makeing is not whether more lots are needed, but fairness to those that don't circumvent the rules. Everyone should be held to the same standard. And if that can't be done without cross server trading, then something is woefully wrong.

thanks

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Funny to see this when the same people posting here immediately start using the development board for their own personal advertising.

Fivo Asia

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Quadork wrote:

This is a great question and one that deserves addressing.

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/agree

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GrafvonSoden wrote:

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Funny to see this when the same people posting here immediately start using the development board for their own personal advertising.

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Me ? I don't think I'm advertising anything. Just asking for clarification from the "Authorities"

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Not not you!

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Khristen wrote:

The game would not come to a screeching halt if cross-server lot trades were ended somehow. All it would do is change the way some people play the game.

It is not impossible to run a large scale business with only 10 lots per character. It requires cooperation with others, but it is not impossible. No one *needs* 20 factories and another 20 lots for storage. If you didn't have 20 factories churning out so much stuff, you wouldn't need another 20 lots to store the excess. You'd have to sell it as you make it instead of stockpiling. One player shouldn't try--nor should they be able to--meet the demands of the majority of the server.

Because why? You've provided nothing to support your supposition, just conjecture and your personal opinion. You seem to want to dictate, 1) players' goals, 2) players' limitations, 3) crafting limitations, and 4) players' accomplishments for no other reason than some personal vendetta. You have not supplied a single fact-base piece of logic for any of these stances.

Back in the beginning, when everyone was new and no one had the ability to grind to master in a day nor support a 100 harvester field, crafters got along just fine. Their services were in demand because the market wasn't flooded. It cost a pretty penny to buy a large harvester, and you made very sure that it didn't accidentaly decay on you. Large houses and guild halls weren't a dime a dozen because there weren't many people who had reached that level of Architect yet. People wore bone armor and chitin. There were no "uber" guns. And we all survived just fine.

Not true. I know of cross lots that started inJul 2003, a full two months before I started the game. People wore bone and chiton because they didn't know better and AS's hadn't progressed into learning all aspects of their craft. I have never played and Armorsmith, but my knowledge and experience of the game have educated me to the point I could start one tomorrow on any server and be at 7 figures within 2 months minimum. I have, however, financed over 8 people getting into the armorsmith profession and am intimate with their needs. I started my architect business in Oct 2003. It took maybe 3 weeks before I was pumping out guild halls and large houses. None of the previous paragraph's assumptions have any basis in history.

As more money came into the system, prices went down. Cross-server harvester trades were a more feasable thing for some players because they could start to afford the upkeep. As more resources flooded into the market, people mastered quicker. Which devalued many of the crafting professions to the point that some crafting professions still struggle to make a living. People got used to seeing malls and huge quantities of items because there was now a means to make huge factory runs of items.

Yet another completely incorrect paragraph. PRICES WENT UP as the demand for resources to holo-grind increased to dramatic levels. Large cross-server harvestor fields were first a response to demand and second a response to competition. SWG's insane decision to give everyone a FREE one or two holo's was the economic straw breaking, not the actions of any one or even 100 players. Wide sweeping injections of resource intensive grinding by the SOE management changed the economy at that axis. It was not players' actions, it was players' reactions. The single effect along and the devastation to stable economic markers is the most pointed failure of the free Xmas holos.

Take away cross-server lot trades and the market is still going to be flooded for a very long time. The solo group "nerf" isa prime example. The doom and gloomers said no one would have money anymore, the economy would fall into a sharp decline, no one would buy anything, cities would collapse because there would be no way to pay for them, every player would be screwed because we'd fall into a deep dark age. And as many said, it didn't happen. Players adjusted. All the money that had been earned before was still there, and that was more than enough to cover the needs of the server. I still believe that there is more money coming in than going out (without stats to reference, that's pure conjecture, though).The only people hurt by the solo group "nerf" are the ones who were taking advantage of the system. It would be the same with cross-server lot trading.

I disagree with this supposition. The loss of cross-server lots would fundamentally require some methodology that would drastically limit interaction on my main server between all my toons, my guild members, andplayers therein that simply try to conduct normal commerce. Your potential "nerf" is short-sighted in the extreme and ignores the huge gains in community, player coordination and interdependency. In my large guild, the majority of players are making money (now) by going on the missions that make money. This includes JTL, rancors, Lok militants, and a variety of things that still pay quite well. They don't get 3 million a day, but they get more than enough to have fun and pay for crafted goods.

While I would love to see an official dev comment on the validity of the cross-server lot trade practice, I don't think it'll happen anytime soon. That doesn't mean they think it's right, not an abuse of the system, or an ok thing to do. It just means that they've got more important things on their plate to deal with right now. There are many things that they need to/want to change about SWG, and those of highest priority to the well-being of the game come first. Cross-server trading isn't an easy fix; solo grouping was. It's a matter of choosing battles, and worrying about cleaning up things when there's time to do it.

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And you appear to want to master reading minds, too. That's an awful lot of conjecture based upon thin air.

Fivo Asia

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Khristen wrote:

Admittedly, there is quite a bit of grey area in regards to cross-server lot trading. How is trading from one server to another different than buying lots from someone on the same server? Not by much, but there's a big difference in what was intended by placing lot restrictions on characters. Cross-server trading puts more into the supply of the server than there is in the demand of the server. Meaning those "ghost" characters aren't taking anything out for what they're putting in. It creates an imbalance that changes the overall economy of the server.

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/agree


NOTE: What follows is my personal opinion.


While they've not expressly stated this is an "exploit" or anything (that I've ever seen), I'm pretty sure the Devs likely frown on the practice of cross-server lot trades. I believe they've more or less stated in the past that this can (and likely will be) looked at for some kind of change.

What that change will be, etc., isn't really known at this point....just that it's on the table for review.


In addition, it was stated above that no one player should be able to supply the majority of the marketplace. The question replied was..."Why?"

The answer is....it's destabilizing to the economy. If one person does this, it means that to compete...any number of other players feel the 'need' to have to do so as well. That only compounds the problem massively...creating a snowball effect.

Note: Part of the reason that some folks have the storage problems they have is due solely to the resource hoarding caused by cross-server lot trades. It simply isn't healthy to have more raw materials flowing into the game than are being taken out. That represents behavior of the faucet/drain system that's....er...'wonky' (wonky = bad).


/bow

Respectfully,

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TheRealTK421 wrote:

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Khristen wrote:

Admittedly, there is quite a bit of grey area in regards to cross-server lot trading. How is trading from one server to another different than buying lots from someone on the same server? Not by much, but there's a big difference in what was intended by placing lot restrictions on characters. Cross-server trading puts more into the supply of the server than there is in the demand of the server. Meaning those "ghost" characters aren't taking anything out for what they're putting in. It creates an imbalance that changes the overall economy of the server.

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/agree


NOTE: What follows is my personal opinion.


While they've not expressly stated this is an "exploit" or anything (that I've ever seen), I'm pretty sure the Devs likely frown on the practice of cross-server lot trades. I believe they've more or less stated in the past that this can (and likely will be) looked at for some kind of change.

What that change will be, etc., isn't really known at this point....just that it's on the table for review.


In addition, it was stated above that no one player should be able to supply the majority of the marketplace. The question replied was..."Why?"

The answer is....it's destabilizing to the economy. If one person does this, it means that to compete...any number of other players feel the 'need' to have to do so as well. That only compounds the problem massively...creating a snowball effect.

Note: Part of the reason that some folks have the storage problems they have is due solely to the resource hoarding caused by cross-server lot trades. It simply isn't healthy to have more raw materials flowing into the game than are being taken out. That represents behavior of the faucet/drain system that's....er...'wonky' (wonky = bad).


/bow

Respectfully,

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Message Edited by Cafa on 01-19-2005 10:41 AM