Business And Economy Archive

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RudiBakhtiar wrote:

Troubles on my server. I recently saw large loads of resources on vendors selling at approx 0.5cpu. Average is 1 cpu on vendors (rough calculation). What is the point of selling this low? Is the time you spend surveying and maintaining harvestors really that worthless that one would sell so cheap?

When I first started the game I remember prices were 5-6cpu...then I recall the big drop to 3cpu...then another drop to 2cpu...but this latest drop is just embarassing. My time is worth more than 1cpu.

I suggest we harvestors unite and come up with a price fix.

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Price fixing never works in this game and is generally looked at with disfavor by people. This is incidently one situation where trying to compare the game to real life doesn't work at all, because price fixing works quite well in real life.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

We all like to make money and no one likes to watch profits dwindle.

But you have to look at the bigger picture as well.

I'm not sure of the quantity of resources that were sold at that lovely price, but where's the problem?

First of all, people tend to forget that the huge flow of credits that caused the economy to go crazy has been put under control by the removal of solo-groups and the 30k rewards. The value of credits has slowly increased and continues to do so for the mean time.

Market control. It amazes me that people attempt to control the market while still trying to retain the same profit. No matter what field or profession, and no matter what you supply, you will never be the sole supplier. In order to "control" a market, one must maintain the lowest prices and the largest supply. Prices must be so low that it limits any real justification for someone else to perform the same task(s) and at the same time have such a large supply that the wouldbe competition can never catch up.

As of right now, every server's economy is sketchy with the CU on the horizon. People are much more weary of spending money, which makes things very difficult as profit is not the same as it used to be. No one tells you what you have to sell your items for. However, supply and demand will effectively dictate what you can sell your wares for.

I wouldn't worry too much about seeing things go for under 1 cpu, as I still see that as a great price and a fair one, regardless of the current economy.

But again, just keep in mind 100000 credits now is worth a little more than 100000 credits were a few months ago.

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What makes you believe that credits are worth less than they did before? And I have no idea where you are getting the idea that people are tired of spending money. In the top 10 boards list, 6 of them are trade boards. More money is leaving the game than entering it. This was true before the solo-nerf too.

If there was one thing I could change in the galaxy is the economy. Not change it directly, but have some form of organized market. Perhaps a search function on the vendor list in the bazaars would work? Now this would ofcourse strengthen the value of a credit dramatically!
What would be quite nice to see is a proper graph of the credits value. Maybe a stock exchange like building on each of the main planets? Atleast on Corellia and Naboo. Not neccecarily where people purchase and sell stocks... but more like a symbolic center where you can view a wide variety of different graphs concerning the economy. How much people are willing to pay for something.
Let's say the demand was high for some Crystalline Gemstone from Dantooine. Perhaps a graph dividing into 3 different classes of quality. Then showing the cpu from day to day,
This could be a nice tool for the harvesters to see what was in demand from time to time. Maybe even speculate and have a huge stock ready for a event causing the crafters to go crazy after some resources of a certain kind!

After each graph is calculated, you see how much money that is flowing through the galaxy, and by a variety of information you can make a diagram of how much a credit is worth! This may not be all that neccecary, but the resource demand charts could be worth it's weight in gold for the harvesters!

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Greblak wrote:
If there was one thing I could change in the galaxy is the economy. Not change it directly, but have some form of organized market. Perhaps a search function on the vendor list in the bazaars would work? Now this would ofcourse strengthen the value of a credit dramatically!
What would be quite nice to see is a proper graph of the credits value. Maybe a stock exchange like building on each of the main planets? Atleast on Corellia and Naboo. Not neccecarily where people purchase and sell stocks... but more like a symbolic center where you can view a wide variety of different graphs concerning the economy. How much people are willing to pay for something.
Let's say the demand was high for some Crystalline Gemstone from Dantooine. Perhaps a graph dividing into 3 different classes of quality. Then showing the cpu from day to day,
This could be a nice tool for the harvesters to see what was in demand from time to time. Maybe even speculate and have a huge stock ready for a event causing the crafters to go crazy after some resources of a certain kind!

After each graph is calculated, you see how much money that is flowing through the galaxy, and by a variety of information you can make a diagram of how much a credit is worth! This may not be all that neccecary, but the resource demand charts could be worth it's weight in gold for the harvesters!

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Generally crafters in need of a certain resource are unlikely to not want a new resource. There is unlikely a variance in demand planet to planet. The commodities market in real life won't work in-game.

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Leana_Txorana wrote:

I suggest we harvestors unite and come up with a price fix

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fixed prices means less people are willing to create the goods, so supply goes down. Normally when supply goes down, a free market has the prices go up. This causes demand to go down until a balance is reached.

Since prices dont change, demand goes up artifically and the leads to shortages.

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Depends on at what price the fix is at. It could be set artificially low as well.

Message Edited by SeCKSEgai on 03-31-2005 12:32 PM

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

Bluejanus wrote in response to my last post:

"What makes you believe that credits are worth less than they did before? And I have no idea where you are getting the idea that people are tired of spending money. In the top 10 boards list, 6 of them are trade boards. More money is leaving the game than entering it. This was true before the solo-nerf too."

Lol, I stated that the value of credits has increased not decreased. Money does not leave the game through trades, it simply transfers accounts and stays within the economy, as there are only limited means the game takes money out of the economy, such as through travel tickets, but there is always a higher flow of money into the economy than is removed from it.

And I never stated people are tired of spending money. What I said was that items do not sell for the exorbitant prices they used to months ago. For example, a 12 point doctor suit is currently available on my server with a minimum bid of 20 and a buyout of 30million. A few months ago a plus ten medicine experimentation ca would go for 30 million by itself.

Before the solo-group nerf, money flowed freely and it took quite a bit to equal something of value to purchase an item in trade. 500k a few months ago was effectively "chump change". CA's and AA's used to sell for millions at even +5. Now one may get 500k to a million for most ca's and AAs.

And the biggest slowdown experienced on the Corbantis server is not from the lack of solo-group nerfs, its because everyone is weary of investing large sums of money before the CU as things they may spend millions on now depreciate in value immensly once the CU is in place. Why spend lots of earned credits in game for an item when it may become useless or much cheaper after the CU?

Message Edited by SeCKSEgai on 03-31-2005 12:32 PM

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You're right. I did misread your posting, but your suggestion that the flow of money is what caused the decrease in CA and AA prices is probably inaccurate. More likely than the value of credits rising (how can credit value increase or decrease in this game anyways?), is that the demand for those items has decreased with a higher saturation of those SEAs.

Total Credits = Items in games (creds no good if there is nothing to buy)
Credit increase has decreased (Solo Group Payout NERF) Not less credits just less influx
More items are being looted/harvested into the system, therefore each item is worth less in terms of credits. This is why the dev's must continually recreate new loots to "soak" up the credits IG and give us something to do. More specifically there are more resources IG then anyone will craft so if you won't sell grind at 1cpu you won't sell in a reasonable time frame. Besides resources are harvested at a fraction of a cpu so as long as you mine quality you have a good mark up.
Price fixing?! - Against free market economics which the game represents + smacks of greed.
Your not 1 of those Unionised BE's are you Rudi?
Deh tuk ehr JAWBS!!!

Total Credits = Items in games (creds no good if there is nothing to buy)
Credit increase has decreased (Solo Group Payout NERF) Not less credits just less influx
More items are being looted/harvested into the system, therefore each item is worth less in terms of credits. This is why the dev's must continually recreate new loots to "soak" up the credits IG and give us something to do. More specifically there are more resources IG then anyone will craft so if you won't sell grind at 1cpu you won't sell in a reasonable time frame. Besides resources are harvested at a fraction of a cpu so as long as you mine quality you have a good mark up.
Price fixing?! - Against free market economics which the game represents + smacks of greed.
Your not 1 of those Unionised BE's are you Rudi?
Deh tuk ehr JAWBS!!!