Post
by Guest » 11.02.2007, 20:25
but if he is doing this, without wanting to make profit, only to ruin the market for a special good or getting other people to buy from him
I understand what you are saying, but the fact remains, it is impossible to conclude his intentions with certainty. Who knows why someone sells steel for .01? Could be error, could be cheating, could be stupidity, there is no way to know for certain.
i think we could agree, that he should be banned for this.
I agree if there was some Kapi-Lie-Detector we could use to see why he is selling steel for .01, and determine this conclusively. My problem is, someone is making a determination here, someone is having to judge whether the guy is playing fairly or cheating, and simply going by the fact that he sells steel for .01, doesn't prove he was trying to ruin the market or cheat. You are assuming his motives were nefarious, but that is not established, nor can it be concluded.
In the real market, companies advertise 'loss leaders' all the time. It is often used as a way of marketing your company. Perhaps he wanted people to remember him, and remember what a great deal he gave them on steel once? Would help in future contract negotiation? Would promote an overall market awareness of a smaller company? This is legitimate business, in my opinion. I certainly don't think people should be banned from the game for it. As well, he may have decided he was going to delete his account, but figured he would unload all of his warehouse first, just to help some people out? Maybe his intention wasn't to cheat or ruin anything at all? We simply don't know this for certain, is my point.
Obviously in the case discussed here, banning is no aprpriate way, because he just opens a account, buys from all the cash he has got, sells everything in his warehouse for 0,01, deletes the account and starts the game all over again...
And HERE is the problem, it's not the player, it's the game. The fact that you can delete and restart, and it's not real money you are giving away. This doesn't happen in real life, you have philanthropy, but once they give away their wealth, they can't start over. Maybe there should be some limit on restarts, or as I said, fix it so you can't sell on the market below the product's production value.... although, I am not sure that is really fair and representative of the actual marketplace? It is a problem, on this we can agree.
The other fact is, that those people buying at this rates make much profit, just because they were "lucky" to be the one, who made the fastest mouseclick.
However, to some extent, this is how the real world market is, as well. Some people are just in the right place at the right time, and benefit from others losses. The first day I played this game, I didn't build a thing, I played the market... I would buy goods on the cheap in large bulks, then re-sell them in smaller quantities at higher prices, and I made most of my start-up cash like that. Once you get a feel for the market trends, it's not a hard thing to do, you just have to consider commissions in your pricing, and stay online, watching the markets.
But i also agree that there should be a way to protect "newbies" , who dont know these rules from buying at these rates and getting banned for this.
Exactly, I am a newbie, and from the states, so I haven't read the rules yet, since I can only read English. This is why it concerned me so much, I don't want to do something against the rules, and I would like clarification on what the rule is, exactly. I am still unclear on this, as it doesn't seem possible to just arbitrarily say, this is cheating and you can get banned. I think it needs to be made clear, exactly what is permitted and what isn't, so that there is no subjective view or opinion involved. As I pointed out, we can't be certain of motive, and that would determine intent to cheat, no?
