Business And Economy Archive

Baidak, thanks for taking the time to develop your idea. It never hurts to rethink how any game system is working.

Having said that, I'm afraid I'm forced to agree with the other responses you've seen here, and for three reasons.

1. First of all,as MDEUK pointed out, the idea is unlikely to have enough people agree to it for it to be effective.

2.I don't support the idea of "setting prices" in any fashion because history suggests that this results in artificially raising priceshigherthan would be the case if prices were agreed on by buyers and sellers in a free market. That's economically inefficient.

3. Finally, although you cited medieval guilds as an example, you didn't go far enough. Although the guild system was originally a fairly effective mechanism for improving product quality and transportation security, the power of controlling a market was quickly corrupted. For example, the Hanseatic League was organized to combat Danish pirate activity that was disrupting trade. It wasso good at this thatLeague membersquickly became recognized throughout northwestEurope as the guardians of trade, andthe prices of goods generally fell as trade security lowered costs.

But that much power was too tempting; League members couldn't resist using it to establish themselves as the only winners. (Besides, lower prices meant less profit... so why not use one's trade power to force prices higher to make more profit?)Within a hundred years the Leaguehad degenerated into a "price-fixing cartel" that imposed artificiallyhigh prices on goods,attacked non-guild members whoproduced "their" goods, and forced guild members tolimit their production regardless of need.

The lesson to take away here is that while giving people this kind of power may work over the short term, eventually it gets institutionalized.Whatbeginsas a use ofpower to keep prices lowbecomes a use of power to stifle competition in order to protect thepersonal privilegesofthose running the system. Ultimately this results inraising prices higher than the actual value of the goods produced... andthat winds up being bad for everyone.

So my advice is simple: let the free market work. Let buyers and sellersfreelynegotiate amongthemselves whatthey think isafair price.

Of course there are problems with this approach... but the alternatives areworse.

I encourage you to consider other methodsfor accomplishing your goals. Can you think of other ways to promote quality and low prices?

--Flatfingers

Its interesting that you are a crafter and you welcomed Vendor Search

I believe the reason for this is evidenced by the fact that you do not appear to have any Merchant skills (certainly not the advertising tree anyway)

The other thing you have to bear in mind is how the CU impacted on the number of crafters still:

a. playing SWG at all

b. playing a crafter desite the respec

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ASHRID wrote:

Its interesting that you are a crafter and you welcomed Vendor Search

I believe the reason for this is evidenced by the fact that you do not appear to have any Merchant skills (certainly not the advertising tree anyway)

The other thing you have to bear in mind is how the CU impacted on the number of crafters still:

a. playing SWG at all

b. playing a crafter desite the respec

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