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Thread: Commodities Market
There are several current problems with resource acquisition -
1) The bazaar price cap makes it an inefficient mechanism to buy large quantities of specialized resources.
2) Vendors are an inadequate alternative for selling resources since there is no good way for a person to know what you are selling on your vendor unless you maintain an external website or specialize in specific resources.
3) "Miners" (people who run harvester operations) don't know what is in demand outside of there own crafting profession. Even if they know that medical crafters will pay a premium for Lokian wild wheat, how exactly do they go about selling a block of 10,000?
4) There is no good way to view current demand for a resource. You can get some idea of supply by searching through the bazaar (though the search interface needs much improvement). As a miner, I don't necessarily know that some medic is willing to spend 8 credits/resource for Lokian wild wheat of OQ > 500.
All of the above leads to the following observations -
1) Most crafters run their own harvesters. This isn't completely desirable as many artisans don't want to run a harvester operation.
2) Non-artisan crafters are forced to maintain 15 skill points in novice artisan. You hear medics asking for surveying ability all the time so they can free up 15 skill points. I think the real answer is giving them a practical alternative to running harvester operations.
I understand that there is a current alternative - you can develop relationships with suppliers. However, I think a more fluid market can be created with the introduction of a commodities market terminal. This terminal would have the following features:
1) Like the bazaar, a resource can be listed for sale or auction.
2) Unlike the bazaar, the 3000 credit cap would not apply. Perhaps an alternative system (like 10% percentage taken off each transaction could keep vendors or personal sales more attractive for very large sales)
3) Resources can be purchased in partial lots. Someone can put up 20,000 for sale, and I can choose to buy a lot of 1,000. This works less well with auctions, but would be easy enough to implement with instant sales. This should also work with existing vendors. It could be made to work with auctions as well (a dutch auction system).
4) Like a bazaar, I still have to travel to the city where the resource for sale is listed.
5) Advanced searching will allow me to search for any specific (or general) resource type I want. I could seach for "Organic with OQ>900" or "Lokian wild wheat with OQ>500" for example.
6) Players can place orders for resources. This is the key to the system. Using the above example, I should be able to place an order for a block of 5,000 Lokian Wild Wheat with OQ > 500 for 8 credits a resource. As soon as someone had 5,000 Lokian wild wheat that matched the order, they could choose to fulfill the order and 40,000 credits would be taken out of my bank account automatically. I would then have to go pick up the wheat (or alternatively, the miner would travel to my planet to fulfill the order or alternatively, the transaction fee could be based partially on distance and the resource could magically appear in my city). If miners can see the actual demand, they can harvest whatever resource brings them the most money.
I don't want to decrease the importance of vendors. I don't want to stop people from running harvesters if that's what they really want to do. I do want to create a more fluid supply chain in crafting.
Ultimately, I think this will drive down the price of resources for poor quality resources andincrease the price somewhat for really good resources. But the big result is that by making supply and demand more visible, crafters will be able to get a steady supply of resources that aren't simply non-existant.
I would love to hear everyone else's ideas on how a commodities market could work without begatively affecting
I ahve two words for you, you big thinker you . . . .
Brilliant.
I love this idea! Especially this one, I am hoping it gets implemented:
6) Players can place orders for resources. This is the key to the system. Using the above example, I should be able to place an order for a block of 5,000 Lokian Wild Wheat with OQ > 500 for 8 credits a resource. As soon as someone had 5,000 Lokian wild wheat that matched the order, they could choose to fulfill the order and 40,000 credits would be taken out of my bank account automatically. I would then have to go pick up the wheat (or alternatively, the miner would travel to my planet to fulfill the order or alternatively, the transaction fee could be based partially on distance and the resource could magically appear in my city). If miners can see the actual demand, they can harvest whatever resource brings them the most money.
Instead of it automatically taking out 40,000, when you make the request, it should place the credits into the system(bazaar) like a bond or whatever so when someone fulfills the request it is already there for them and the resources are there for you. If nobody fulfils the request the credits return to your account.
There should also be a way to discover or for the bazaar to show the amount of resources sold in a particular market and their average price for that type of resource, that way when buying and selling resources you can see if you are getting a good deal for you resources, what the competition is. Or anything at all because right now you see 500 units of Steel x sell for 3000 and the same "brand" of steel, same quantity for 1000 credits. For a beginner it makes it quite confusing for what price they should sell there stuff at so they aren't getting ripped off.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=artisan&message.id=13426
this post was on a similiar proposal and contains a lot of lively discussion (some of it even thoughtful),
What I think we shold do is combine these 2 proposals in one terminal type: Infomation terminal. What woudld youfind there?
Commodity information
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the list could be endless.
I like this idea a lot. I deal in commodities and hate that I have the same 25 item / 3000 credit cap.
The only thing I would be mindfull of is in a virtual economy it might be better if the ask price is not displayed and I will tell you why.
As a supplier if I see that I see something for 5 credits a unit someone will come along and offer it for 4 then I will respond in kind until my efforts are totaly devalued. See where I'm going with this?
If we have an infinate storage on the market and instant priceing control my job as a harvester becomes less worth doing if I have to moniter the market 24/7 just to keep my priceing structure viable.
The only thing I can think of to get around this is to have the buyers bid against a blind market and those who set there prices to meet that bid with the additional qualifiers get the contract. The bazzare for commodities would ahve to change thou so the bids could include number of units requested, high and low quality paramiters and in the case of radioacitves min to max potental energy values.
I like this idea, especially item #6 allowing customers to place orders on the commodities terminal. Not only is it a great way for suppliers and consumers to connect, but it also allows resource suppliers to see what is in greatest demand at that time so they can adjust their production accordingly. What a great way to increase market efficiency. Brilliant!
As for pricing, let your competition charge what they want. One of three things will happen: 1) They will sell out and anyone else who needs the commodity will have to buy from you at your price (unless they are willing wait a couple of days for your competition to restock); 2) Your competition goes out of business because they aren't charging enought to cover their costs, or 3) Their product is priced so cheaply you buy it up and resell it at what you thinkthe fair price should be (thus cornering the market, even if only for a day or two).
Slim Vargo, Corbantis
I agree that we need a commodities market. As it is structured now, the merchant vendors dont really address my needs.
Were I to bring that up in their forum, I would be told I am not a "real" merchant and treated to a series of snobbish posts about how I should structure my play. So, I havent bothered.
At the very LEAST we need to have the limit on resource purchases (only)raised to 10k credits in the bazaar.
The taking orders thing I am little dubious on. I think part of the fun and challenge of being a "miner" is anticipating demand and matching price and supply to meet expectation. Being restricted to 75k in total concurrent sales is a huge bottleneck in the process (25 slots at 3k each).
I wouldnt mind seeing an entirely new terminal.. perhaps one per planet.. for a "resource exchange". This would work as following:
1) One resource exchangeon Tatooine, Corellia, and Naboo.
2) Resources prices are set at a cost per unit by each seller to one decimal place. 3.2 cr/unit would be supported, for instance.
3) As many or as few items can be purchased at that price. So, if you had 20,000 units in the exhange listed at 4cr/unit, a player could choose to buy 6000 units for 240000 credits.
4) There would be a 5-10% transaction fee (mitigated by business skill) for all items at TIME OF SALE.
4.5) Players would also pay a nomimal fee to belong to a resource exchange. They would only be able to sell through an exchange to which they belong. Looking down the road.. the three planets listed would fill the need for a Hutt, Rebel, and Imperial exhange.
5) There would be a listing of all resources available at a given exchange along with the volume and average price per unit over the last week. (for instance: Foolium Steel, 675k units at 3.4 cr/unit). Units with no volume would have no display. This will create a circumstance where old commodities need not clutter the exhange board.
6) Optionally, players with a higher business skill could also see the price per unit on the other exchanges.
I think this model would transition resources to be much more like a modern commodities exchange and would at the same time create a logical way to display and calculate a price index as holo discussed in a post on the subject a while back.
Anyhow, thats my vision. I am a single account full time miner. The down side to my vision is it just makes it easier for multi-accounters to squeeze out single accounters. Something I am beginning to realize has much more dramatic impact on my sales then any dupe bug.
The game is set up to allow folks to spend real life money to increase production, something that I think is extremely distasteful.
Regards,
Artuk
