Merchant Archive

OK, but that's not a commodities market.

And the stock idea just wouldn't work in this game.

I take it back, that's sort of a commodities market. Unfortunately I think the relatively short life span of named resources would limit the viability of such an in game system.

It doesn't have to have the current value, it could at least have numbers showing scarcity. That a lone would be useful.

How would you define scarcity?

a cool idea... except that stocks are used to generate capitol for a growin business... and well established long standing business that is already spanning numerous (planets in this case) would likely not need the stocks. plus, i think most players would not bother trading stocks as there would be no good way to use dividends (typically what a stock is bought for). now futures trading on the other hand could be nice... a surveyor/merchant could pre-sell certificates to players for resources that are still being harvested. these resources would simply be transfered to the players safe deposit box. but its a gamble! you could buy 10k iron for say 15k. the merchant is betting that the iron will be crap that the player will lose out... the player is betting the the iron will be great and hell make off like a bandit. either way, the merchant (in this case a broker) would recieve a "carrying" fee for said certificates and resources and end up making money no matter what happens

Too much potential for griefing in a futures system. It would be incredibly difficult to program as well.

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BoberFett wrote:

ToranTT

Stocks themselves are worthless. The only value of a stock is in it's dividends or in it's speculative value. How exactly would purchasing stock in something in this game provide value to the stockholder? How would you determine earnings and dividends? If somebody buys stock based on speculative future value, what would make somebody want to by the stock from the stockholder?

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But this is what I meant about not treating them as 'stock's.

Gold doesn't give you dividends, but people still trade it.

The concept of the 'stock market' works no matter what you are trading. Companies use it to generate revenue and reward people with dividends. That is just one method of 'stock' exchange.

You don't need to do company stocks, you can do fake units of anything, it'll still be traded. What most people think of when they talk about stock trading is the long term investment stuff.

Speculative trading is where people make or lose money real fast. This trading occurs inside the investment trading. The stuff itself is totally irrelevant to the concept of making money as fast as possible.

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ToranTT wrote:

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BoberFett wrote:

ToranTT

Stocks themselves are worthless. The only value of a stock is in it's dividends or in it's speculative value. How exactly would purchasing stock in something in this game provide value to the stockholder? How would you determine earnings and dividends? If somebody buys stock based on speculative future value, what would make somebody want to by the stock from the stockholder?

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But this is what I meant about not treating them as 'stock's.

Gold doesn't give you dividends, but people still trade it.

The concept of the 'stock market' works no matter what you are trading. Companies use it to generate revenue and reward people with dividends. That is just one method of 'stock' exchange.

You don't need to do company stocks, you can do fake units of anything, it'll still be traded. What most people think of when they talk about stock trading is the long term investment stuff.

Speculative trading is where people make or lose money real fast. This trading occurs inside the investment trading. The stuff itself is totally irrelevant to the concept of making money as fast as possible.

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There is nothing in game that is comparable to gold. Resources are in a constant state of flux. If named resources didn't exist and there were only types of resources, you might have an idea. But there wouldn't be a gold market in real life if one week there was Flaximite gold which disappeared never to be seen again, then Ipomiiciam gold available the next week, and Ostimatium gold the next week. There'd be zero stability in the gold market. We also have the problem that resources are unlimited. They're only limited by the number of harvesters on the server.

As for these fake units, I'll ask again. Why would people want to buy these fake units? Because they increase in value? Why do they increase in value? The only reason stocks increase in value is because somebody else wants it. What makes these fake units valuable to somebody that they'd want to spend their money on them?

Let me give you an example. The developers create a "fake unit" (though I still don't understand what you're talking about, stocks are real, not fake. They represent your portion of ownership in a corporation) and these are called "Widgets". The developers offer these for sale to everyone on the server for 1000cr each and there are 100,000 of the "Widgets" available. Why should I spend 10,000 to buy 10 Widgets?What do they provide for me. Let's assume that they sell all these Widgets. What's going to make somebody want to buy these Widgets from me for 1100cr each? Where is the value?

You just keep looking at the literal examples of physical tangible commodities (pieces of a company or ounces of gold).

Ok whatever, butif you saw it in action you'd understand.

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ToranTT wrote:

You just keep looking at the literal examples of physical tangible commodities (pieces of a company or ounces of gold).

Ok whatever, butif you saw it in action you'd understand.

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If you can't explain it, how can it be implemented? Fact is, something has to have value in order to be sold. Blasters have value. Armor has value. Resources have value only because they can be turned into something that has value.

Fake stock has no value.

I think what bober's getting at is if there's no tangible value backing the stock, or widget, or made up item, then there's no incentive to buy it. Gold may not pay dividens, but even if it devalues you can take it home and put it in a shoe box or something. The metal itself is the tangible backing. Stock either takes off and you reap the benifits, or the business tumbles and you make the six o'clock news. The tangible value behind a stock is the portion of the business you have purchased, and this game isn't designed to incourage crafters to hand over part of their business, nor for others to buy a portion of that business. Besides, I have a boss in real live. Don't need one here

That's exactly it revisoHT. If the stocks provide no value, (in this game the only value is to be able to make something from an object, or use the object somehow) then nobody will buy it.