Use country statistics for products impact price

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 18.02.2009, 03:50

There is no reason why a product that is grossly undersupplied in a country cannot drive up prices of a product in high demand. Since stores are selling to NPC's these NPC should act more like real consumers would. Given a shortage of a product (and lack of a viable substitute) the price the NPC's are willing to pay for a product should be expected to go up. This would lead to a product with high demand and low supply go off the shelf faster than it does now. As the Supply balances off the time it takes to sell a product at a high price will expand, forcing the prices to go down in order to sell the items in time to gain liquidity.

One way of achieving this is to set a product demand baseline (based on the total number of players and some multiplier based on rate of consumption.) Rate of consumption could be based on something like Each person in the game can eat 4 apples a day (Fresh Market Demand) One person can drink 1 bottle of Apple juice a day and each bottle of apple juice requires X number of apples. Each person can buy 8 chairs every X Years (apply durability factor based on quality of product - see below for explanation), each company can buy 5 chairs per every 10 Sq Meters of buildings every X months (apply durability factor) etc. Then adjust demand to gradually drop based on quality of product so demand for higher end products (higher price) is smaller than for lower end products (lower price).

Again this could be adjusted by country depending on an estimated GDP based on productivity and number of people employed by country. (Total wages plus total value of products produced minus costs of production and taxes)

Add a replacement rate based on durabiltiy / perishability of a product. Durability would be similar to having an expiration date but longer term based on the type and quality of the product. A quality 2 Computer would have a durability rating of 12 (as in number of game months) this is a base of 6 + 3 for each additional level of quality. Thus high end producst will last longer, have a higher price a lower demand cycle and be more realistic forcing players to consider demand for various levels of quality

Lots of work but it would generate a basis for determining the NPC level of demand so that they react more realistically to the supply of products in the NPC Markets. If their is a need to increase demand, the NPC population can be calculated by using a multiplier applied to the number of active players, this would cause a natural fluctuation of demand based on the changing number of players per country.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 18.02.2009, 11:50

Been suggested before, unlikely to happen (though i agree that the npc prices should be driven by supply&demand)

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 18.02.2009, 13:06

Indeed , should be , never going to happen...

Maybe on new realms ?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 18.02.2009, 14:53

thats what they all say maybe on new realms i ask when will this so called hypothetical new realm come???!!!

but true they should add this it would add some diversity to the game cause now players are concentrating only on gas wardrobes etc. this way if they know that lower supply means higher prices they will start producing other stuff and this trend of making gas and wardrobes will stop

PS- even i make gas lol!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 18.02.2009, 19:02

Yeah like very few people sell food as its so bad but look at the demand for milk more than that of gas-i think the prices shoulld all sky rocket for stuff like that... then peopl ecould go and fill those markets and the whole economy could balance out- it would be awesome

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 19.02.2009, 03:03

Not very like this idea. It make the game too hard to play and quite confusing. I still prefer the current game play with some interface upgrade such as batch production for non premium players

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 19.02.2009, 14:18

Mr Right,

This would not make the game confusing, mainly because these are behind the scenes Changes, and it helps generate real prices for the goods produced, currently what we have is an all out price war because supply has become unlimited for almost every good and demand is unlimited so prices can go down. Right now most products are selling at a price that only favors those who began the game early and have amassed billions of currency. So when you price to market (low) they buy all your product and resell at their price floor. In other words few players now control prices on the game. If the NPC market offered better options than it would force a true decision between B to B or B to C markets. But again. The game is fun, and what do I know about economics?