Variable market prices based on real time prices

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 14.03.2007, 19:15

Bacon,

1, I love contests, was merely trying to highlight some of the problems this system would cause them.

2, I didn't assume they would I meant they could, If it comes across that way I apologize, but look at what happened with power prices recently, ok a bit of an exterme example as there was a huge surplas there.

3,

3, The argument of infringing the free market just to make the game more attractive to people not beeing able to spend every day on this game is terrible.

That wasn't the argument i was making, I was trying to explain the problems that people, who can't spend every waking hour here might face IF the system was introduced.

Are you telling me someone who works full time, with no internet access at work, is valued less as a player, because they might only spend 1 hour a day on the site. Due to REAL LIFE COMMITMENTS, this does not mean any less love of the game.

(i'm not refering to myself here)

Geraci,

Thank you for the reply. and i'm sorry I wasn't clearer with my first post.

What modifications can you make to have this worked?

Thats a brillant question and brillantly placed, made me smile

I know you asked for solutions but i've thought of another problem with the system, and thats the way the quality calculation would have an affect on the particular quaily of a contest good, unless that was first disabled before starting the contest. (Lemon contest is only for q0 but there are other Q's on the market.) But that being said;

I think i'm still too new a player myself to say what needs doing, because most suggestions that i have seen, have already been rejected (to do with how to deal with the cheaters).

I only really see a problem with 3 products wood, stones and steel. the main products that are badly affected by the low 0.01 prices. So maybe take your suggestion, above but only apply it to those 3 markets, This would make the task of finding %'s easier as we are only dealing with the 3 main offenders.

As to what is currently happening and this is only a guess they are producing a report either daily or weekly, so staff can see when it happens after the event and then take action. I think this is probably the best method for the remaining products. Otherwise you force cheaters to try and become even more devious and thus harder to catch.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 14.03.2007, 20:52

You're right. Wood, stone and steel are the only places this sort of thing is really needed. None of the other markets get badly abused because people need to take the time to create their goods whereas starting a new account gives you an automatic pile of the three building material. It wouldn't need an upper bound either since the Raw Material LLC (NPC) handles that already. Perfect.

James
Supragoods Inc

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 15.03.2007, 00:15

Yes thats exactly what Im saying. A player that spends a lot of time with the game therefore earning the devs more income due to advertising is worth more.

The point is we can't adapt a game that is built upon a real-time market economy to work better for people that only have time to play one hour a week. That would ruin it for a majority of players. In Sweden we have a term for that called "Jantelagen". It pretty much ruined the country...

Edit: Also, in the real world if people do sell something for less than the actual productions cost they would do this for reasons that are hard to apply to Kapilands. Either you sell it cheap cause you're out of business or you really need the cash as fast as possible. This could apply to kapilands and should be allowed. I shouldn't have to be in a position were the cartells and their high prices make me NOT be able to put a lower price.

Another reason would be that I sell something cheap so I can earn money on related products. This is the most common reason but this doesn't work in Kapilands. I cant sell a computer really cheap in hope that I will earn it all back on monitors. Like MS I cant sell an xbox really cheap so I can earn more money on games. Or Matell selling Barbie for cheap prices and then selling clothes with high profit. You have to remember that Kapilands doesn't offer any product diversity.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 15.03.2007, 01:26

Geez, how cheap do you want to sell stuff for? With the previous real data using the numbers for glass we saw that you would be able to offer a price of about 16.00 caps. That is 8.00 caps, or 1/3 less than the lowest listed price. So what pricing would be a happy minimum? 10,00 caps? 5.00 caps? 0.01 caps? Just let me know when you sell off your goods for that so that I can buy them up and get banned for cheating.

Honestly though, are you just bristling at the idea that you will be restricted in general and any restriction would upset you? Which market have you run numbers for using my suggestion and found it to be unreasonable?

As I've said before, I pretty much agree with Walthir on his posts but I'm trying to understand your point and cannot. I think the reason is that you are being very vague about things and giving your feelings instead of data and then analyzing your data. Yes, I understand you don't to be restricted. Yes, I agree you should be able to sell cars for 0.01 caps ot 10,000,000,000.00 caps. But it sure would be nice to see a number from you so I can understand where you draw the line, if indeed you do.

Please help me understand with some actual data. I am dumb and need to see the numbers that you are basing your decisions and thoughts on.

Thanks.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 15.03.2007, 07:28

Interesting topic indeed. Firstly i am with Nilty with the whole free market thing, thu of coz none of us like the idea of being severely undercut.

But none the least, Geraci has a good idea in promoting a "fairer" market activity. Putting a % into the caps is a problem as the price for i.e. Steel and Water for 1% the variance is alot, unless of coz each item has its own given %. This also does not includes the desperation factors for money by certain ppl (either due to their time commitment or anything else) resulting a massive drop in price and hence a chain reaction occur, and also consciously apply strategy to gain back additional profit in other relevant items as mentioned by Bacon.

Take wood for example, probably either there is too many wood maker there or there is a period where no one buys it, hence resulting the price as it is now, on the other hand, a constant activity in Steel kept its price near the NPC pricing.

Some thoughts, (this might be slightly out of topic here):

1. A time limit on an item can be put into the market. After X amount of time the item(s) will be automatically send back to the owner and of coz no refund for the 10% paid earlier on. Probably 4~5 days? And also, i know the market can sort by date, but an indication of how long (days perhaps) those item had been there would be nicer

2. Anything being sold above the NPC price will have a indication to the user (in case newbies or what) telling them what they are doing or better still just state those price in the warehouse since NPC pricing is the same anyway. And if they still insist on selling it, auto bounce back their item with a msg send to them saying its wrong, your acc will be monitor, bla bla bla. Or even better still one cannot sell an item above the NPC price at all.
This will clear off those old stocks and those out-of-this-world price for some items.

3. Flushing out all the market item every week to have a fresh start

This might be a bit crazy but think about it, it solves 1 and 2 all together, but problem will be deciding on the cut off time, and extremely heavy load during the first day of activity.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 15.03.2007, 09:20

Bacon,

I think you misunderstand me, and are taking little sound bites out of proportion.

There are various things I could now say, but the admins might not be happy with me saying them. I will explain privatly to any admin, that wants me to.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 15.03.2007, 17:38

Im not gonna give you numbers. I don't want restrictions on the market. Your idea makes sense, its just the principe of a trade barrier.

Id love to hear what you can't say in public. Please PM me.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 15.03.2007, 21:59

I am sorry to make light of this situation but a couple of things have come to mind.

First of all, no matter what the Admins do to stop cheating, someone will figure out how to beat the system. My advice to you is... don't participate in any "funny" business and the game will be much more fun for you.

Price dumping is not cheating, unfortunatly it is a fact of life, and a fact of a free and open market system, just ask any Canadian Apple Farmer.

Now, My last point...everyone is just way too greedy. How much money are you guys making on some of these products?!? And then you complain about abuse of the market and, you all cry foul!

For example. STEEL! holy crap! I can produce my steel from scratch. That is to say I have my own Power plant, my own mines, water well and factories. I can produce all my Coal and Iron Ore, power and even my own chemicals from scratch. So my total production costs for one unit of q2 steel is approx 27

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 16.03.2007, 11:29

>Price dumping is not cheating, unfortunatly it is a fact of life, and
>a fact of a free and open market system, just ask any Canadian
>Apple Farmer.

So what happened to Canadian apple farmers? *google* Ah, apples from USA (bumper crop of 2004). So 32 million Canadian consumers get cheaper apples and the most inefficient Canadian apple farmers fold, whereupon the resources that they would have used for inefficient apple farming will be used for something else, instead. Win-win. The only loser here is the inefficient Canadian apple farmer who has to find a new job.

It's dumping only if you're selling at under cost, after all, and this is not what has happened to the Canadian apple farmer.

"Canada imported 130,000 metric tons of apples during the 2004/2005 season, with a large proportion of those imports coming from the United States. The country consumed and estimated 302,000 metric tons meaning 43% of the apples consumed were not grown in the country."

This means that the Canadian apple farmer is very vulnerable for currency fluctuations (weak US dollar -> cheaper US apples) and bumper crops (more apples for the same outlay and more apples than expected -> cheaper apples).

>Thanks to you guys, I get to sell my steel at 130

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 16.03.2007, 20:25

First of all,

Nice job on the research.

Secondly. Maybe my sarcasm didn't come through in my last post, but I agree with most every thing you said.

I am very happy to sell my steel at, what? 300% mark-up. Don't get me wrong, I am not stupid. Could I demand such prices in the real world? I doubt it. Not many products, be them Raw Materials or End Products, get a 300% mark-up on a open market system. Steel could have been a bad example due to the extremely high demand for it within Kapiland.

I would much rather sell it at NPC prices (135

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 16.03.2007, 21:18

>Maybe my sarcasm didn't come through in my last post

My apologies, English is my second language, and the sarcasm didn't register.

>but don't scream at me when I decide to start selling 30,000 steel
>a day for 60

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 16.03.2007, 21:44

I don't want to stray too far from the topic of this thread, but again you make a very good point. I don't really want to lower the price of steel considering I am a steel producer and not a steel consumer, but I do want to elimate the poor company who cant compete at my profit margins. The only problem is there is way too much highly priced steel on the market now.

I realize I must demand the highest price to grow quickly, so I have been selling it at top price, but I need to use my situation as an advantage. (my situation being, that I can produce steel very very cheap)

If we start to control prices, then what is my advantage in this game...besides making alot of money on steel, I'm just another Steel producer selling my products for max profits day after day. I decided to build steel from scratch on purpose, because I saw a demand for cheaper steel. Now I will be controlled by price regulations and I would lose any upper hand I had.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 18.03.2007, 07:21

Just a quick on,

"However, you could sell your 30,000 steel at 118

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 18.03.2007, 13:39

skyn wrote:Personally (and talking from a person that doesn't have a lot of cash in hand) i would buy up all the 118 caps steel and sell it back to the market at a let say 20% extra (10% commission + 10% profit) - instant 11.8 caps profit / steel

Yeah, that's why I mentioned the market price of 130 caps, meaning the prevalent price at the market at the time. This means that you would be trying to sell the steel you just bought at 118 caps at 143 caps or so, and your capital could be tied up for quite a while.

To make my opinion clear: any kind of price caps are unnecessary, as free markets (such as ones in Kapilands) will guide the prices to the equilibrium. Less steel or more demand for steel -> higher prices and higher profits -> more steel producers -> prices go down. And conversely: more steel or less demand for steel -> lower prices and lower profits -> some of the least efficient steel producers sell their steel mills and do something more profitable with their capital -> less steel produced -> prices go up. Of course it takes time, but the correction still occurs, and there are none of the side effects that price caps cause.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 18.03.2007, 13:49

quote:
I think someone offering lemons at 3.00 caps now would be banned for cheating anyway!

i disagree, sure at the moment its way below the norm, however it only cost less than .50 to produce, so therefore it is being sold at a profit.
i think that as long as its been sold above production, then there should be no problem, dont know how many times i would put something on market at a few caps below the lowest offer, but still at a huge mark up.
then within the next hour everyone else is doing the same, and instead of selling within hours, it takes days to sell. as long as i have enough cash and can wait, then no problem, but if i was short on cash and was hoping for a quick sale, then i am screwed.
so i disagree with putting strict limits on selling of all products, however i wouldnt think it would be to hard for the program to figure out the lowest possible production cost of all items and then set that as the min for selling.
another possible solution for those who are short of cash , is to have an npc that would buy their items for production or lower, that way no one else would benefit, but they would get the cash that they need.
then we could only sell to other players at production or higher, this would then enable players to still get good deals without worrying if they are cheating by buying the deals they see.