Economics

[Ottomat]

<DIV><FONT size=3></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>                  I hate to sound bitter, but it is obvious to the most casual observer that the economy in EQ2 is totally messed up. This is due to many reasons, some of which I would like to take a couple of </FONT><FONT size=3>moments to </FONT><FONT size=3>address. The first of these is the concept of Supply and Demand (a very basic concept). Let's say you have a village of 100 people. And then imagine that 50 of those 100 people are </FONT><FONT size=3>bakers. Each </FONT><FONT size=3>baker is capable of making food to sustain 10 people for 1 day. How many of the bakers are actually employed by the village? We shall say 10 (simple math). What do the other 40 do to </FONT><FONT size=3>make a </FONT><FONT size=3>living? They cannot sell to the rest of the village, due to "Supply and Demand". That will be covered later as a shortcoming of the most recent patch. Now let's say that an average loaf of bread </FONT><FONT size=3>sells for </FONT><FONT size=3>10 sp. This is including all resource cost and time and effort. Discounting the farmer fees that the baker has to pay, the average baker can buy his components for 10cp. That is a huge </FONT><FONT size=3>markup, until </FONT><FONT size=3>you look at the farmers. An average farmer decides that the time it takes to make his goods (which are free to make for him, except time) equals 5sp  per item of raw material. Now you </FONT><FONT size=3>look at the </FONT><FONT size=3>baker, who has to pay half his income from a loaf of bread to the farmer. Despite the fact that it takes the baker 2x as much time to bake his bread than it takes the farmer to gather his </FONT><FONT size=3>resources. Now </FONT><FONT size=3>is this an acceptable economy? Not really, especially since the output in bread does not take into account the input cost of the resources. Now we need to take into account that the </FONT><FONT size=3>baker (and the </FONT><FONT size=3>farmer) both have to be their own Wholesalers for their products. There is no Retailers at all (or at least viable retailers who will give you any sort of profit based on the time and effort </FONT><FONT size=3>necessary to </FONT><FONT size=3>produce your goods). This adds another expenses to the seller, and is a detractor from even partaking in the economy. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>                 Now let's imagine that there is a Retailer in this town or village, which will buy your goods at a set price (both farmed and player made) and then sell them to other players for a mark-up (say </FONT><FONT size=3>the usual of about 400%). Give the retailer a set price that they will pay for farmed goods (in comparison to the sell price of other non-farmed tradeskill items only at a 400% mark-up) as well as player </FONT><FONT size=3>crafted goods (also at a 400% mark-p). Now, the farmers and crafters who do not wish to take the time to sell their own goods at say a 200-300% mark-up can sell their goods to the Retailers. And </FONT><FONT size=3>since the Retailers have other imaginary markets they can sell to, they are not limited to the 100 people in the village, but can sell their goods anywhere, the inflation of an immense Supply versus a </FONT><FONT size=3>limited Demand is limited. If a Baker needs to make 100 items to become better at their tradecraft, yet 1 item will feed 1 member of the village for 1 day, and you have 50 people making the goods, </FONT><FONT size=3>that means that you need to feed 5000 people for the 50 bakers, but you only have 100 people eating the goods. That means you produce 4900 more hours worth of food than you need to sell. A </FONT><FONT size=3>serious oversupply. Now this can be put even more simply for other non-perishable items. If 10 of the 100 villagers are carpenters, who need to make 20 items to improve their skills, then you produce </FONT><FONT size=3>200 items. Each of these items are needed by each of the villagers (all 100 of them). This means you have just produced 2x the number of needed items. Without retailers who can "sell to other </FONT><FONT size=3>markets" your econmy is done.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>                    Now, how this can be done in a RPG environment = You have certain vendors that will buy player made goods at say a 200% mark-up (now this is based on total costs, not just 1 particular </FONT><FONT size=3>cost). You designate a certain "cost" to farming items (say 50% of equivalent fuel costs per farmed item). Allow farmers to sell to these Retailers who then sell them again to PC's at a 100% or 200% </FONT><FONT size=3>markup (i.e. you have now designated a set price for farmed goods, which will keep the economy of them in proportion to their actual percieved cost.) This will relegate the cost of production (very </FONT><FONT size=3>important). Now have these Retailers have a memory as to what items they have purchased, and sell them with a turn around of 400% (this is just a number for example, and a true economist could </FONT><FONT size=3>probable give you a more accurate assessment, therefore you should ask one). This should be very simple and obvious to even the most casual observer of economics.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>              So, now to the actual situation: A player generates 230 hours worth of game food (this is 10 items of 2.5 hrs per item, which of course is not even nearly enough to advance a level). He is 1 of </FONT><FONT size=3>100 doing so. This equates to 23000 hours of game time fed.  This will feed 23,000 players for 1 hour or almost 1000 players for 1 full day. That is taking into consideration all players eat all the time </FONT><FONT size=3>they are on and that ll 100 are on 23 of 24 hours per day. This seems unikely. Therefore the baker needs to find another alternative for his produce. Now, he can either compete against the others w</FONT><FONT size=3>hich lowers profit margin for all) or use an alternat source of sales. At the present moment, there are 2 options: selling to a vendor (for no profit or a loss if ou had to buy farmed goods) or do writs </FONT><FONT size=3>20% "profit" for guild writs and 60% "profit" for non-status writs.) Of course all three of these options ignore the farming costs of production (how many farmers do you think a country would have if </FONT><FONT size=3>their profits were ignored?) On a personal note, I just spent (as a lvl 31 provisioner) 1.5 hours making 10 items for a guild status writ. This includes processing the raw materials, making the </FONT><FONT size=3>ingredients and then actually making the final combine. This does not include any time actually farming the raw ingredients (and since 1 of these is probably the rarest of farmer harvests (i.e. of 99 </FONT><FONT size=3>harvest attempts in a 3 hour period with maximum skill, only 12 were harvested.) This adds up to a lot of time. So, I am to turn in these items (4.5 hours worth of effort) for a paltry 10sp + change (sorry f</FONT><FONT size=3>orgot to write down the exact amount.) That equates to around 2sp per hour, which is probably so below "mininum wage" as to be "illegal". Even if you mulltuply this by the 60% for non-status writs </FONT><FONT size=3>now there is another problem, since you have to wait over 1.5 hrs to get a new one if they ask for an item you can 1) not make, or 2) don't have the resources for...can you say "frustrating"?) This </FONT><FONT size=3>equates to probably about 30 sp, which is 6sp per hour (which is almost as laughable).</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>                   Ok, so as a tradeskiller you are now left with 3 non-profit and 1 on-line time extensive options. Oh wait, as an added incentive to selling on-line we are gonna make it so that there is a m</FONT><FONT size=3>iddle-man, who does nothing for you but charges a fee for peple trying to buy your goods, if they want to save money at the expense of the time it takes to run around the already poorly planned </FONT><FONT size=3>streets. Now you have to take that into consideration when you want to sell. So, 3 of your methods of getting rid of your produce is non- or marginal-profit. Don't yo find yourself thinking "why bother?</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>              Another problem with the system (and this regards only to provisioners, I guess and to some degree for tailors): about 1/3 of your (provisioner's) expendable (i.e. eaten) combines require </FONT><FONT size=3>some kind of product that comes from trapping. However, the programmers (in their infinit {lack} of wisdom decide to reduce the occurence of harvesting your product to {laugh} 25%. Ok, now let's do </FONT><FONT size=3>just a minimal amount of thinking here: 1) which one of the 2 is expendable? 2) which one of the 2 has an item, which once produced has a limited market since only so many characters need it (and </FONT><FONT size=3>since the profit margin of production for non-player sale is so laughable as to be a non-entity)? Let me guess...pelts.) And since the meats only come from the good side, and cannot be harvested from </FONT><FONT size=3>the evil side, this is such a good ratio <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>          Now this only covers a few of the economic woes of EQ2 and is from the limited perpsective of a Provisioner. I know that it is probably worse for some TS types. It seems to me that someone </FONT><FONT size=3>needs to take a basic level ecomony course and actually pass it. How long do they actually spend making nation-wide economic decisions? Probably more than 1 week.</FONT></DIV> <P>Message Edited by Ottomatik on <SPAN class=date_text>02-24-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>12:03 PM</SPAN></P><p>Message Edited by Ottomatik on <span class=date_text>02-24-2005</span> <span class=time_text>12:03 PM</span>

[Bur]

I might have been able to read that if you had some paragraphs in there. Hell even double spacing. It's next to impossible to read a 30 line paragraph.

[SuDang]

A rockhard read but worth it.

[Sute]

<DIV>If you first look at it and think its too hard to read...dont..get thru the read and you will see this as a good read indeed.</DIV>

[Kocmoc]

Im very agree with you Ottomatik. They totaly forgot to optimize ingame economics, I hope they working on it and we will see fixes soon. In my humble opinion they begun to optimize it with making items attunable, not the best first move, but in this situation most logical begining.

[Encantador]

<DIV>A village of 100 people and 50 are bakers ? ROFL. The farmers and millers and carters and charcoal makers/woodsmen of the surrounding villages must be laughing their heads off. Mind you the bakers in said other villages must be annoyed at having so much competition.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>From such a poor start is there one or more points worth noting in this long rant?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>It seems to boil down to :-</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1) </DIV>

[Encantador]

<DIV>A village of 100 people and 50 are bakers ? ROFL. The farmers and millers and carters and charcoal makers/woodsmen of the surrounding villages must be laughing their heads off. Mind you the bakers in said other villages must be annoyed at having so much competition.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>From such a poor start are there any points worth noting in this long rant?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>It seems to boil down to :-</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1) There are too many provisioners in the game producing too much food/drink.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2) Provisioners can only make money by doing tradeskill quests.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>3) It takes a long time to make a small amount of profit as a provisioner if they use the tradeskill quests.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I suggest this post should have been made in the tradeskill forum where other provisioners could make supporting or denegaating replies.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Boza]

I've said since release that SOE needs to have an economist on staff that can look at the in-game economy from a macro perspective. It's mind-boggling that a company with the scope and resources that SOE has wouldn't have thought to consult an actual ECONOMIST. Christ, get Sid Meier on the phone if nothing else; at least he could explain to you the principles of cause and effect in long-term virtual reality constructs. By the way, encanta, you lose at the internet. First you make an ignorant, derogatory post that clearly states you didn't bother to read the original post, then you show your inability to use the 'edit' function. I'm also trying to figure out exactly what "denegaating replies" are. Is that supposed to be "denigrating?" I do not think that word means what you think it means.

[CherobylJ]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Ottomatik wrote:<BR> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3> </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>I hate to sound bitter, but it is obvious to the most casual observer that the economy in EQ2 is totally messed up. This is due to many reasons, some of which I would like to take a couple of </FONT><FONT size=3>moments to </FONT><FONT size=3>address. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>The first of these is the concept of Supply and Demand (a very basic concept). Let's say you have a village of 100 people. And then imagine that 50 of those 100 people are </FONT><FONT size=3>bakers. Each </FONT><FONT size=3>baker is capable of making food to sustain 10 people for 1 day. How many of the bakers are actually employed by the village? We shall say 10 (simple math). What do the other 40 do to </FONT><FONT size=3>make a </FONT><FONT size=3>living? They cannot sell to the rest of the village, due to "Supply and Demand". That will be covered later as a shortcoming of the most recent patch. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>Now let's say that an average loaf of bread </FONT><FONT size=3>sells for </FONT><FONT size=3>10 sp. This is including all resource cost and time and effort. Discounting the farmer fees that the baker has to pay, the average baker can buy his components for 10cp. That is a huge </FONT><FONT size=3>markup, until </FONT><FONT size=3>you look at the farmers. An average farmer decides that the time it takes to make is goods (which are free to make for him, except time) equals 5sp  per item of raw material. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>Now you </FONT><FONT size=3>look at the </FONT><FONT size=3>baker, who has to pay half his income from a loaf of bread to the farmer. Despite the fact that it takes the baker 2x as much time to bake his bread than it takes the farmer to gather his </FONT><FONT size=3>resources. Now </FONT><FONT size=3>is this an acceptable economy? </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>Not really, especially since the output in bread does not take into account the input cost of the resources. Now we need to take into account that the </FONT><FONT size=3>baker (and the </FONT><FONT size=3>farmer) both have to be their own Wholesalers for their products. There are no Retailers at all (or at least viable retailers who will give you any sort of profit based on the time and effort </FONT><FONT size=3>necessary to </FONT><FONT size=3>produce your goods). This adds another expenses to the seller, and is a detractor from even partaking in the economy. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>Now let's imagine that there is a Retailer in this town or village, which will buy your goods at a set price (both farmed and player made) and then sell them to other players for a mark-up (say </FONT><FONT size=3>the usual of about 400%). Give the retailer a set price that they will pay for farmed goods (in comparison to the sell price of other non-farmed tradeskill items only at a 400% mark-up) as well as player </FONT><FONT size=3>crafted goods (also at a 400% mark-p). </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>Now, the farmers and crafters who do not wish to take the time to sell their own goods at say a 200-300% mark-up can sell their goods to the Retailers. And </FONT><FONT size=3>since the Retailers have other imaginary markets they can sell to, they are not limited to the 100 people in the village, but can sell their goods anywhere, the inflation of an immense Supply versus a </FONT><FONT size=3>limited Demand is limited. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>If a Baker needs to make 100 items to become better at their tradecraft, yet 1 item will feed 1 member of the village for 1 day, and you have 50 people making the goods, </FONT><FONT size=3>that means that you need to feed 5000 people for the 50 bakers, but you only have 100 people eating the goods. That means you produce 4900 more hours worth of food than you need to sell. A </FONT><FONT size=3>serious oversupply. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>Now this can be put even more simply for other non-perishable items. If 10 of the 100 villagers are carpenters, who need to make 20 items to improve their skills, then you produce </FONT><FONT size=3>200 items. Each of these items are needed by each of the villagers (all 100 of them). This means you have just produced 2x the number of needed items. Without retailers who can "sell to other </FONT><FONT size=3>markets" your econmy is done.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3> Now, how this can be done in a RPG environment = You have certain vendors that will buy player made goods at say a 200% mark-up (now this is based on total costs, not just 1 particular </FONT><FONT size=3>cost). You designate a certain "cost" to farming items (say 50% of equivalent fuel costs per farmed item). Allow farmers to sell to these Retailers who then sell them again to PC's at a 100% or 200% </FONT><FONT size=3>markup (i.e. you have now designated a set price for farmed goods, which will keep the economy of them in proportion to their actual percieved cost.) This will relegate the cost of production (very </FONT><FONT size=3>important). </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>Now have these Retailers have a memory as to what items they have purchased, and sell them with a turn around of 400% (this is just a number for example, and a true economist could </FONT><FONT size=3>probable give you a more accurate assessment, therefore you should ask one). This should be very simple and obvious to even the most casual observer of economics.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>So, now to the actual situation: A player generates 230 hours worth of game food (this is 10 items of 2.5 hrs per item, which of course is not even nearly enough to advance a level). He is 1 of </FONT><FONT size=3>100 doing so. This equates to 23000 hours of game time fed.  This will feed 23,000 players for 1 hour or almost 1000 players for 1 full day. That is taking into consideration all players eat all the time </FONT><FONT size=3>they are on and that ll 100 are on 23 of 24 hours per day. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>This seems unikely. Therefore the baker needs to find another alternative for his produce. Now, he can either compete against the others w</FONT><FONT size=3>hich lowers profit margin for all) or use an alternat source of sales. At the present moment, there are 2 options: selling to a vendor (for no profit or a loss if ou had to buy farmed goods) or do writs </FONT><FONT size=3>20% "profit" for guild writs and 60% "profit" for non-status writs.) Of course all three of these options ignore the farming costs of production (how many farmers do you think a country would have if </FONT><FONT size=3>their profits were ignored?) </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>On a personal note, I just spent (as a lvl 31 provisioner) 1.5 hours making 10 items for a guild status writ. This includes processing the raw materials, making the </FONT><FONT size=3>ingredients and then actually making the final combine. This does not include any time actually farming the raw ingredients (and since 1 of these is probably the rarest of farmer harvests (i.e. of 99 </FONT><FONT size=3>harvest attempts in a 3 hour period with maximum skill, only 12 were harvested.) This adds up to a lot of time. So, I am to turn in these items (4.5 hours worth of effort) for a paltry 10sp + change (sorry f</FONT><FONT size=3>orgot to write down the exact amount.) That equates to around 2sp per hour, which is probably so below "mininum wage" as to be "illegal". Even if you mulltuply this by the 60% for non-status writs </FONT><FONT size=3>now there is another problem, since you have to wait over 1.5 hrs to get a new one if they ask for an item you can 1) not make, or 2) don't have the resources for...can you say "frustrating"?) This </FONT><FONT size=3>equates to probably about 30 sp, which is 6sp per hour (which is almost as laughable).</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3> Ok, so as a tradeskiller you are now left with 3 non-profit and 1 on-line time extensive options. Oh wait, as an added incentive to selling on-line we are gonna make it so that there is a m</FONT><FONT size=3>iddle-man, who does nothing for you but charges a fee for peple trying to buy your goods, if they want to save money at the expense of the time it takes to run around the already poorly planned </FONT><FONT size=3>streets. Now you have to take that into consideration when you want to sell. So, 3 of your methods of getting rid of your produce is non- or marginal-profit. Don't yo find yourself thinking "why bother?</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3> Another problem with the system (and this regards only to provisioners, I guess and to some degree for tailors): about 1/3 of your (provisioner's) expendable (i.e. eaten) combines require </FONT><FONT size=3>some kind of product that comes from trapping. However, the programmers (in their infinit {lack} of wisdom decide to reduce the occurence of harvesting your product to {laugh} 25%. Ok, now let's do </FONT><FONT size=3>just a minimal amount of thinking here: 1) which one of the 2 is expendable? 2) which one of the 2 has an item, which once produced has a limited market since only so many characters need it (and </FONT><FONT size=3>since the profit margin of production for non-player sale is so laughable as to be a non-entity)? Let me guess...pelts.) And since the meats only come from the good side, and cannot be harvested from </FONT><FONT size=3>the evil side, this is such a good ratio <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>Now this only covers a few of the economic woes of EQ2 and is from the limited perpsective of a Provisioner. I know that it is probably worse for some TS types. It seems to me that someone </FONT><FONT size=3>needs to take a basic level ecomony course and actually pass it. How long do they actually spend making nation-wide economic decisions? Probably more than 1 week.</FONT></DIV> <P>Message Edited by Ottomatik on <SPAN class=date_text>02-24-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>05:55 AM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>Otto, forgive me but I went through and added paragraphs so that others can more easily read this.  Good post and I'm going to re-read this a couple of times now before commenting.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>To the folks advocating an Economist on staff; odds are any graduate program in Econometrics (economic systems mechanics and modeling at a Micro and Macro economic level) would have students who would be glad to write functional papers for SOE.</DIV>

[Thunndar6]

<DIV> There is too much food on the market, but not nearly enough drink at reasonable prices.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> On Unrest there is a serious shortage of drink, I put 4 stacks up on tuesday, within a couple hours it was all sold.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> Not all servers are experieincing the same things I guess.</DIV>

[EvilIguana9]

On mistmoore there is never enough drink. T3 drink run 15sp for a 30 minute drink..... I make far FAR less than 30 silver every hour.

[Helt]

<DIV>There needs to be more cash in the game as well, this would help to move the economy along. With that being said, I'm not saying flood the newbie zones with cash, but at level 25 I can't find one mob that drops cash loot. Someone stated that it cost 30 silver for 1 hour of drink...I'm lucky to get 3 drops ( 1sp ** cp vials / hands / other worthless crap that I was getting at level 10 in Antonica) in a 1/2 hour. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If there was a little more money floating around, crafters products would move faster. I spent about 25 gold + / - to outfit my pally for levels 20 - 30. Now I can't even get back 2 gold for all my equipment but I can keep collecting hands / vials / and all the other 1sp and change goodies. I guess I should head back into BB or Ant and slaughter all the grays to get cash so that all the players who need these mobs can complain that I'm ruining the game. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Helton</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>/LFG to farm hands / vials / and all the other 1 sp and change crap. </DIV>

[Eal]

<DIV> <DIV><EM>1) There are too many provisioners in the game producing too much food/drink.</EM></DIV> <DIV><EM></EM> </DIV> <DIV><EM>2) Provisioners can only make money by doing tradeskill quests.</EM></DIV> <DIV><EM></EM> </DIV> <DIV><EM>3) It takes a long time to make a small amount of profit as a provisioner if they use the tradeskill quests.</EM></DIV> <DIV><EM></EM> </DIV> <DIV><EM></EM> </DIV> <DIV><EM></EM> </DIV> <DIV>Welcome to the real world. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The number of merchants is based on the profit incentive. Look at the number of businesses that fail every year. Unless you want Sony to impose some sort of affirmative action, there is always going to be a problem of market adjustment. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Out of those 50 bakers only 10 of them are going to stick around because of the profit incentive. As fewer bakers are around profits will increase attracting more bakers which will make profits decrease, so on and so forth.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I don't want to get into a class in ecnomics, which I think a lot are really confused in the subject, but the only solution in creating a more viable market is creating more markets. This allows more chances in making a profit, but will never fix the problem of market adjustment. Unless you know something the rest of the world doesn't and if you do, I would like to be your publisher.</DIV></DIV>

[Solarax]

<blockquote>Welcome to the real world. The number of merchants is based on the profit incentive</blockquote>sorry but this just is not true in EQ where there is an ALTERNATE incentive to make items called LEVELING

[Qandor]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Bozack wrote:<BR>I've said since release that SOE needs to have an economist on staff that can look at the in-game economy from a macro perspective. It's mind-boggling that a company with the scope and resources that SOE has wouldn't have thought to consult an actual ECONOMIST. Christ, get Sid Meier on the phone if nothing else; at least he could explain to you the principles of cause and effect in long-term virtual reality constructs. <BR><BR>By the way, encanta, you lose at the internet. First you make an ignorant, derogatory post that clearly states you didn't bother to read the original post, then you show your inability to use the 'edit' function. I'm also trying to figure out exactly what "denegaating replies" are. Is that supposed to be "denigrating?" I do not think that word means what you think it means.<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <P>For all we know they already have an economist on staff. We really do not know. The point is however, that a game economy is a significantly different animal than a real world economy. Many concerns of a real world economy just don't apply in the game world. No one is going to go hungry in a fantasy world because the economy stinks. It may in fact be true, that a rather lame half hearted attempt at imposing real world principles is what is really torturing this economy. </P> <P>First and foremost, in a game, is that everyone should be enjoying themselves. This is entertainment. It is hassle enough getting the mortgage paid and kids college tuition paid in real life. I do not need that type of hassle in a game environment. I do not want an economic simulation. Everyone should be made to feel they are adavncing. That they are somehow better off today than yesterday. We do not need economic winners and losers. Who the hell wants to play a game and feel destitute? The economy must be infaltionary to insure that players, at least in a fantasy world, are prospering and enjoying themselves. You should not be taxing money out of the game. You need to reward players for sending their money back out to the great computer netherworld. You accomplish this by discretionary spending. Horse purchases are a perfect example of this as would housing purchases if they were done correctly. There can be many, many other luxury items as well that players would be delighted to destroy their coin on. </P> <P>If done correctly, you have considerable funds flowing in and considerable funds exiting the game world. Players are thrilled they are gaining wealth and just as thrilled to spend it on the next toy. Everyone is happy. Everyone is having FUN. It's a GAME.</P> <P>At some point if you still feel too much money is entering the game say a year or two from now, make bigger toys. The heck with guild halls. Offer guild castles if you have to at a million plat a piece. Players then will happily run around for untold hours earning cash, pool it all, and blow it on a guild castle. That is game play. That is people having fun. </P> <P>Keep the real world economists and depression causing economic theories out of games. The games do not need them. All such attempts at installing real world economics in games do is make some very wealthy and some dirt poor and struggling. Struggling players are not having fun, quit and look for another outlet for their entertainment. If I'm a game developer, I do not want folks quitting my game due to some lame brain economic theorist who has no clue as to what makes a good game. </P>

[Ottomat]

<DIV>"Alternative markets" was the main focus of the original post. Making it so that the only way to make a profit is selling to players is an abject failure. They should be the number 1 source based on supply and demand, but there should be (and was, though I admit they were too high at the time and should have been lowered, but not to such a drastic degree) a way to make an alternate profit. Writs, weren't my only concern though.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This is a virtual world, not the real world, and certain factors have to be taken into account that would not work in a real world economy or have to be created to simulate those factor that make an economy work. In the real world, one can change one's profession (or one's business) if there is an overabundance. One can also always become employed by someone else's business to make a living. In a virtual world where nearly 100% of the "employed" have to be their own wholesaler. While adventuring is a viable alternative to tradeskilling, the profit margin does not match the expense of upgrading your equipment as you level. While having made all equipment "attuned" (this blows the "real world" argument straight out the window ... take a look at E-Bay some day) was a step in the direction of reducing competition for those tradeskills that make equipment, it is also an attempt at price controls. Why not do so for all tradeskills?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As was reducing the profit margin for writs. Which I feel was a good idea, taken way too far. Most of the economy balancing attempts made so far have been extreme measures, which have usually either made things worse, or not helped in any way. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I was trying to put some perspective on the situation. I used the numbers of bakers in my post for ease of math, but many seem to have latched onto the poor choice of numbers. This does not eliminate the validity of the necessity for overproduction by the Tradeskillers for levelling purposes, and the extreme lack of any marginally profitable alternative to get rid of the stuff. I was also trying to introduce the concept of retailers and wholesalers. After consideration, I can see that it would be a total price control, since the producer would more than likely not be able to haggle on the prices of his wares to the NPC retailer. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>15 bakers (1/6 of the 100 people minuse the 10 non-tradeskillers) making 3 stacks of final combine food (not even enough for a level) would produce (at an average of 2.5 hrs per item) 2250 hours of food. The numbers are actually much worse than that, since 3 stacks is a minimal amount of production taken into consideration the amount it takes to level.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Writs were (and I stress were) an alternative, but the profit margin was too high. So they dropped it to levels so low as to be pathetic </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>An example: (This was a non-guild status writ, I use the term writ for all tradeskill quests, sorry) 45 mins to do 10 final food combines (30 mid combines), at a cost of production of 5.5 silver - which does not take into account harvested raws - resulted in a 9.5sp gross profit, 4 sp after pure output. Take into Consideration it took an average of about 1.5 hours to harvest the materials. That is 2hrs15 mins for 4sp. At that rate it would take me days of production to even be able to purchase 1 piece of upgrade equipment. This is totally unacceptable. Selling the raws for 20cp per (which is about 1/5 the going rate) I could have made the same profit. And since most of the mid-combines were grey or green, the skill gain was minimal as well. I make better skill gain not doing writs, but I did writs to fund my skill gaining sessions. Now I can't even reasonably do that.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Before the nerf the net profit was 1g 4sp for the exact same writ. Over 20 times the production cost. A more reasonable level would lie somewhere between the 2 (at least 4x the production cost, and taking the harvests into consideration). With the new fuel costs, they could at least equate the harvested raws as equaling the fuel cost.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I (and all of the provisioners I know) refuse(d) to do any drink writs, since there (and even was before the writ nerf) a better profit margin on selling drinks. Limited resources is the reason for a lack of production on drinks. Food, for whatever reason, just does not sell.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>EQ1 had too much money in the system, so prices were astronomical. EQ2 has too little, and prices are still astronomical.</DIV>

[Dansida]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Ottomatik wrote:<BR> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>                  I hate to sound bitter, but it is obvious to the most casual observer that the economy in EQ2 is totally messed up. This is due to many reasons, some of which I would like to take a couple of </FONT><FONT size=3>moments to </FONT><FONT size=3>address. The first of these is the concept of Supply and Demand (a very basic concept). Let's say you have a village of 100 people. And then imagine that 50 of those 100 people are </FONT><FONT size=3>bakers. Each </FONT><FONT size=3>baker is capable of making food to sustain 10 people for 1 day. How many of the bakers are actually employed by the village? We shall say 10 (simple math). What do the other 40 do to </FONT><FONT size=3>make a </FONT><FONT size=3>living? They cannot sell to the rest of the village, due to "Supply and Demand". That will be covered later as a shortcoming of the most recent patch. Now let's say that an average loaf of bread </FONT><FONT size=3>sells for </FONT><FONT size=3>10 sp. This is including all resource cost and time and effort. Discounting the farmer fees that the baker has to pay, the average baker can buy his components for 10cp. That is a huge </FONT><FONT size=3>markup, until </FONT><FONT size=3>you look at the farmers. An average farmer decides that the time it takes to make his goods (which are free to make for him, except time) equals 5sp  per item of raw material. Now you </FONT><FONT size=3>look at the </FONT><FONT size=3>baker, who has to pay half his income from a loaf of bread to the farmer. Despite the fact that it takes the baker 2x as much time to bake his bread than it takes the farmer to gather his </FONT><FONT size=3>resources. Now </FONT><FONT size=3>is this an acceptable economy? Not really, especially since the output in bread does not take into account the input cost of the resources. Now we need to take into account that the </FONT><FONT size=3>baker (and the </FONT><FONT size=3>farmer) both have to be their own Wholesalers for their products. There is no Retailers at all (or at least viable retailers who will give you any sort of profit based on the time and effort </FONT><FONT size=3>necessary to </FONT><FONT size=3>produce your goods). This adds another expenses to the seller, and is a detractor from even partaking in the economy. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>                 Now let's imagine that there is a Retailer in this town or village, which will buy your goods at a set price (both farmed and player made) and then sell them to other players for a mark-up (say </FONT><FONT size=3>the usual of about 400%). Give the retailer a set price that they will pay for farmed goods (in comparison to the sell price of other non-farmed tradeskill items only at a 400% mark-up) as well as player </FONT><FONT size=3>crafted goods (also at a 400% mark-p). Now, the farmers and crafters who do not wish to take the time to sell their own goods at say a 200-300% mark-up can sell their goods to the Retailers. And </FONT><FONT size=3>since the Retailers have other imaginary markets they can sell to, they are not limited to the 100 people in the village, but can sell their goods anywhere, the inflation of an immense Supply versus a </FONT><FONT size=3>limited Demand is limited. If a Baker needs to make 100 items to become better at their tradecraft, yet 1 item will feed 1 member of the village for 1 day, and you have 50 people making the goods, </FONT><FONT size=3>that means that you need to feed 5000 people for the 50 bakers, but you only have 100 people eating the goods. That means you produce 4900 more hours worth of food than you need to sell. A </FONT><FONT size=3>serious oversupply. Now this can be put even more simply for other non-perishable items. If 10 of the 100 villagers are carpenters, who need to make 20 items to improve their skills, then you produce </FONT><FONT size=3>200 items. Each of these items are needed by each of the villagers (all 100 of them). This means you have just produced 2x the number of needed items. Without retailers who can "sell to other </FONT><FONT size=3>markets" your econmy is done.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>                    Now, how this can be done in a RPG environment = You have certain vendors that will buy player made goods at say a 200% mark-up (now this is based on total costs, not just 1 particular </FONT><FONT size=3>cost). You designate a certain "cost" to farming items (say 50% of equivalent fuel costs per farmed item). Allow farmers to sell to these Retailers who then sell them again to PC's at a 100% or 200% </FONT><FONT size=3>markup (i.e. you have now designated a set price for farmed goods, which will keep the economy of them in proportion to their actual percieved cost.) This will relegate the cost of production (very </FONT><FONT size=3>important). Now have these Retailers have a memory as to what items they have purchased, and sell them with a turn around of 400% (this is just a number for example, and a true economist could </FONT><FONT size=3>probable give you a more accurate assessment, therefore you should ask one). This should be very simple and obvious to even the most casual observer of economics.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>              So, now to the actual situation: A player generates 230 hours worth of game food (this is 10 items of 2.5 hrs per item, which of course is not even nearly enough to advance a level). He is 1 of </FONT><FONT size=3>100 doing so. This equates to 23000 hours of game time fed.  This will feed 23,000 players for 1 hour or almost 1000 players for 1 full day. That is taking into consideration all players eat all the time </FONT><FONT size=3>they are on and that ll 100 are on 23 of 24 hours per day. This seems unikely. Therefore the baker needs to find another alternative for his produce. Now, he can either compete against the others w</FONT><FONT size=3>hich lowers profit margin for all) or use an alternat source of sales. At the present moment, there are 2 options: selling to a vendor (for no profit or a loss if ou had to buy farmed goods) or do writs </FONT><FONT size=3>20% "profit" for guild writs and 60% "profit" for non-status writs.) Of course all three of these options ignore the farming costs of production (how many farmers do you think a country would have if </FONT><FONT size=3>their profits were ignored?) On a personal note, I just spent (as a lvl 31 provisioner) 1.5 hours making 10 items for a guild status writ. This includes processing the raw materials, making the </FONT><FONT size=3>ingredients and then actually making the final combine. This does not include any time actually farming the raw ingredients (and since 1 of these is probably the rarest of farmer harvests (i.e. of 99 </FONT><FONT size=3>harvest attempts in a 3 hour period with maximum skill, only 12 were harvested.) This adds up to a lot of time. So, I am to turn in these items (4.5 hours worth of effort) for a paltry 10sp + change (sorry f</FONT><FONT size=3>orgot to write down the exact amount.) That equates to around 2sp per hour, which is probably so below "mininum wage" as to be "illegal". Even if you mulltuply this by the 60% for non-status writs </FONT><FONT size=3>now there is another problem, since you have to wait over 1.5 hrs to get a new one if they ask for an item you can 1) not make, or 2) don't have the resources for...can you say "frustrating"?) This </FONT><FONT size=3>equates to probably about 30 sp, which is 6sp per hour (which is almost as laughable).</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>                   Ok, so as a tradeskiller you are now left with 3 non-profit and 1 on-line time extensive options. Oh wait, as an added incentive to selling on-line we are gonna make it so that there is a m</FONT><FONT size=3>iddle-man, who does nothing for you but charges a fee for peple trying to buy your goods, if they want to save money at the expense of the time it takes to run around the already poorly planned </FONT><FONT size=3>streets. Now you have to take that into consideration when you want to sell. So, 3 of your methods of getting rid of your produce is non- or marginal-profit. Don't yo find yourself thinking "why bother?</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>              Another problem with the system (and this regards only to provisioners, I guess and to some degree for tailors): about 1/3 of your (provisioner's) expendable (i.e. eaten) combines require </FONT><FONT size=3>some kind of product that comes from trapping. However, the programmers (in their infinit {lack} of wisdom decide to reduce the occurence of harvesting your product to {laugh} 25%. Ok, now let's do </FONT><FONT size=3>just a minimal amount of thinking here: 1) which one of the 2 is expendable? 2) which one of the 2 has an item, which once produced has a limited market since only so many characters need it (and </FONT><FONT size=3>since the profit margin of production for non-player sale is so laughable as to be a non-entity)? Let me guess...pelts.) And since the meats only come from the good side, and cannot be harvested from </FONT><FONT size=3>the evil side, this is such a good ratio <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>          Now this only covers a few of the economic woes of EQ2 and is from the limited perpsective of a Provisioner. I know that it is probably worse for some TS types. It seems to me that someone </FONT><FONT size=3>needs to take a basic level ecomony course and actually pass it. How long do they actually spend making nation-wide economic decisions? Probably more than 1 week.</FONT></DIV> <P>Message Edited by Ottomatik on <SPAN class=date_text>02-24-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>12:03 PM</SPAN></P> <P>Message Edited by Ottomatik on <SPAN class=date_text>02-24-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>12:03 PM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <P>How about this as a possible ecomnomy fix:</P> <P>NO ITEMS can be sold for over 500% vendor price(or for no value items such as harvestables, a Dev determined cost) or under 50% vendor cost. this would stabilise the economy and force the system into leveling out rather than "waiting" for the the nevagunahappen Economy to "stabilize"... it has stabilised just at an inflation of 1000-3000%.</P> <P>For Example:</P> <P>Item                                      Base Cost                           Market Range</P> <P>Tier 1 basic Harvest                   2cp                                   1cp - 10cp</P> <P>Tier 1 Rare Harvest                    25 sp                         12sp50cp - 1gp 25sp</P> <P>Tier 1 Drink                                 30cp                              15cp - 1sp50cp</P> <P>Tier 2 Harvest                             8cp                                4cp - 40cp</P> <P>Tier 2 Rare Harvest                    1g                                  50sp - 5g</P> <P>etc</P> <P>etc</P> <P>etc</P> <P>then after the economy has forced itself to level out (lets say 2 months) then take the average price and make that the new base price. Rinse, repeat and you have a somewhat controlled economy while still allowing free enterprise to maintain the price.</P> <P> </P> <P>Edit:** got hit by the one star ninja without him even posting a comment ... must have been one fo those people selling coral for 60gp and electrum clusters for 30sp on my server</P><p>Message Edited by Dansidans on <span class=date_text>02-26-2005</span> <span class=time_text>10:09 AM</span>

[Eal]

<DIV><EM>sorry but this just is not true in EQ where there is an ALTERNATE incentive to make items called LEVELING </EM></DIV> <DIV><EM></EM> </DIV> <DIV><EM></EM> </DIV> <DIV><EM>    </EM>Never fails, someone always responds just to post.  I was merely stating a fact on economics. I didnt write the rules. Who is complaining about the leveling aspect of Tradeskilling, and WHO is actually tradeskilling with the motive of just being level 50 in thier skill? I have no doubt that profits are the main incentive. Unless, you are like me who circumvent the system by picking a skill I use the most such as Provision. Also, I have guild members who make the other items, so I am not buying your stuff anyways. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>   Now to help fix the market, I suggested adding more to the market. Just takes a bit of creativity. Woodcrafters could make special handles for weapons to increase the delay. Metal workers could get their axes enchanted by a sage to get a proc. You see the picture. You could go anywhere with this. Weapons in EQ1 had slots. Well, you could make these slots for Tradeskilling.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>i.e.  I am a provisioner, I could attach a PB&J to your weapon allowing it to permanantly blind your opponent or atleast make him real hungry.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This game has a lot of potential. I understand the problems they are facing which are balancing issues. Unfortunately, its impossible to make everyone happy. So I say pick an Idea Sony and go with it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>     I like this game because I see a alot of potential. The game has a good foundation. You could add guild instance zones for example based on the level they have attained. They would be located in different locations.1-5 is based in Home town 5-10 is tier 2; 10-15 is tier 3 so on and so forth. This would help alleviate the long walks to the zones you frequent the most. The guild instance zone belong to the guild and are upgradable. Another market for Tradeskillers. The higher the status of the guild the more features you can get. Such as Brokers, menders,  and whatever else you can think of. If the Guild had enough status points you could eventually buy a Castle for your zone.</DIV> <DIV>      </DIV> <DIV>    Now if you want to make it interesting. This zone that belongs to guild could be PvP with a bestiary that complements the mobs you have defeated. For example, If you defeated Dragon X, he succumbs to your guild and now, maybe in lesser form, serves in your defense. Completing Goblin Mastery, recruits 10 goblins to help in your defense of your Guild House or Mansion or Castle. Conquering another guild entitles you to status prestige and maybe some guild exp. This keeps people occupied with another aspect of the game.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I am just throwing ideas out there hoping it sparks some more ideas without trying to write a book here.  Sorry for going off topic. I had an idea and went with it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Ottomat]

<DIV>Off topic is okay, I just hope that someone at Sony actually reads these posts, cuz a lot of good ideas can come from them, or at least inspirations for some good ideas. I like the idea of the castles and guilds. That would be a lot of fun and would help build Guild cohesiveness. Plus, the guild could deck out the castle with furniture and oter items to make each one special to the guild (and increase the profit margin of carpenters.)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The idea of making the tradeskills not dependant on the others is a decent idea, if they go with the various TS's being enhanced by the other TS's (Like the slots idea above). A Prov could have his food enhanced by an alchemist to add stats, a Weaponsmith could have his weapons enhanced by a Sage/Jeweler. The prov could be allowed to make Items that the alchemist/sage/jeweller use to enhance other items. A Carpenter could get a sage/jeweler to make furniture glow or sparkle. The options are endless and would possibly enhance the economy.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As far as the outrageous prices of items (21g for a t1 rare?! who are these people kidding?), I am not sure what to do with that. Maybe have them harvested not only from the regular nodes (at a random %, just a little more often than is currently prevalent ... I have harvested many many many nodes and never seen a rare once, but maybe that is just bad luck or maybe there is a trick to it that I do not know as of yet.), but also have them spawn in their own nodes, kind of like the "?"'s. I am not a fan of price controls, but the way it is going, that may be a necessity.</DIV>

[JarredDarque]

<DIV>OK,  I just took up crafting last weekend during the double xp  [which in turn me and the other 10,000 people on unrest who started then really made the market go backwards (T2 raws are selling for 10 times as much as T5 raws)].  I am now a 23 outfitter, but am doing it mainly to help guild, and try and put a bit of change in my pocket (I am  ahead of the curve for the people who started when I did, by about 7-8 levels).  I have a similiar *possible* fix that *may* work...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Ok, allow the selling of raws to vendors for a predetermined amount, a very low amount (T1-1cu, T2 5cu, T3-15cu, T4 25cu, T5-50cu).  Allow the purchasing of raws, (but only in the amount sold to them) from vendors for 400-500% what the vendors paid for said raws. (note: this does not include rares which would need to be on a differant scale,  a MUCH differant scale)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Allow the sellback of crafted items to vendors, the sellback price would include, costs of fuels, costs of raws [costs of raws being determined as the costs that the raws can be sold to vendor, not purchased from (vendors are looking for profit also)] invloved in all combines for the final or sub you are selling to vendor.  Also allow a minimal profit for time consumed, maybe 5cu for T1 items up to a few silver for T5 items, and more of a profit for the more combines,  perhaps a % of the production costs,  like a 5-10% profit.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Allow the sellback to players of crafted items that where sold to vendors, for again, 400-500% over what the vendors purchased said items for. (again, rares, and items crafted with rares would be on a differant scale)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This would:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>a) limit the price gouging that harvesters are doing on goods to a reasonable limit, (why would I pay playerA 50cu for a T2 raw when I can but it from a vendor for 20-25cu?)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>b) give more of a market, if not a very profitable one for harvesters, also add convinience</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>c) limit the costs on adventurors for buying crafted goods that where once being priced gouged (why pay playerA 10sp for this piece of armor when I can buy it from a vendor for 7sp and 50cu?)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>d) give the crafters a bit of a profit for their goods they are making while lvling, especially those who do not have the time to run a shop at all times, or who cannot afford to have a merchant mule running 23 hours a day.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Well, some of you say, well why dont the crafters just not sell their goods to the vendor for 1sp, and sell them to players for 10sp, since the vendor would not have the items to sell back for 5sp instead, well, give the vendors and unlimited supply then, that may fix that situation also.  This would have to be applied differantly for rares however, very much differantly.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Just an idea though, let me know what yall think if yall would, also being posted in the crafter forum.</DIV>

[Miral]

<DIV>i'd be tradeskilling just for level if it wasn't so tedius and boring hehe... not because I care about level numbers but so I can access high level zones for exploring</DIV>

[Ottomat]

<DIV>I personally like the idea, since it would level out the economy, though I said earlier, I am not 100% sure of the "price control" nature. It was very similar to my wholesaler idea earlier, yet better spelled out. As I have seen the cost of resources sky-rocket into the atmosphere of unbelievability I have begun to rely completely on my own harvested items. This is a set-back since it is quite hard at tmes to even harvest items when my prov level is higher than my adv level, since the harvest nodes like to be mingled in with group aggro mobs (Nek especially, and now it is starting to be greyed out when I should be moving on to T4 combines <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />). I will NOT pay the inflated prices on resources. And the 1000% profit some of the items are selling for is a little ridiculous. Price controls from the NPC vendors would possibly bring the prices down to more reasonable levels. I still boggle over the 21g for a T1 rare harvest item...</DIV>

[Ethi]

<DIV>I think you have a lot of good information in your post.  I think however there are a couple ways of fixing things without throwing out the economy by bringing in NPC price regulators.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>One thing people need to keep in mind is that economic changes do not happen quickly and if you make changes quickly you will have no meaningful basis.  The big changes made a week ago are still working through the system.  Players not being high levels is still inflating high lvl prices artificially.  The tradeskill recipes still need some balance to enable bakers to produce food and drink a bit more quickly and to reduce the amount of resources consumed for that production.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I'd caution against making rapid changes and I'd make baby changes tuning things over time.  Right now my wife is a provisioner in the guild and her problem is that she can't keep up with demands.  She gets everyone giving her free resources so she is overflowing in resources.  However even working hours on end she can't keep up with demands.  So prices of food and drink sky rocket because everyone is demanding it.  In a free market however high prices drive the market to produce more.  In my guild there are at least a dozen people working on making provisioners to capitalize on the money to be made and to also make their own food and drink.  This in turn is driving up the resource prices for items used to make high demand things like drinks.  This will have a side effect of causing more people to do foraging.  One problem I think right now is that there aren't enough foragable resources to keep up with the end demands.  Like my wife is constantly searching for apples.  Yet apples seem to be pretty rare forage.  Another issue is that nobody is harvesting the fungus resources.  So these resources tend to take up all the nodes making it even harder.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So some things that could be done that are slight changes is maybe making potions more attractive to cause people to see value in harvesting fungus.  Maybe make refining create 4 items instead of 1.  However I'd say do these one at a time and wait a week or two to see if the system establishes a balance.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>And of course if it is simply impossible to make a free market work and the devs decide to toss in the towel, then NPCs regulators as you suggest can fix the whole issue...  I'd just make sure that all writs and trade skill tasks were not profitable at all using NPC prices.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Aristac]

<DIV>I certainly hope that the Devs read this post.  This was not a rant, as some have stated. I applaud you and I completely agree with everything you have stated. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Though my eyes bled a bit, it was definatley worth the read. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Samnas]

<DIV>I agree there are problem that need to be fixed with crafting, but my gosh do some of you people really think it is that easy to balance out a MMORPG economy or that consultation with and economist will be a miracle cure?  If the fixes were as easy as some suggest I am sure they would be done already it is not that SOE does not care to have a perfect game it just kind of difficult to do )  Just a couple comments on a few of the suggestions.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Price controls just dont work when talking about pc-to-pc sales.  Almost impossible to implement and even if you can it does not work.  For example price controls on rare resources.... all it ends up with is lessening the incentive of harvesters to harvest...... actually creating less supply (it is the limited supply that has increased the price so much in first place).  So prices may be cheaper, but the items still even more rare to people.  *EDIT* sorry I read this suggestion for price-controls in different post and just reread this one and it does not contain this suggestion sorry.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The suggestion that vendors should still be paying considerable markups on crafted goods I think also does not work.  Not until they can stop crafters from botting.  For non-botters it is fine I think as long as it is reasonable, but the botters inject enough money into the economy to do great harm (causes inflation and actually hurts legitimate players).  And by the way the economist some of you want to consult would probably think this is a bad idea also; or at least that the more product sold to the vendor then he increasing lowers the amount he pays since increasing supply with demand constant will decrease price in an economy.</DIV> <P>Message Edited by Samnas on <SPAN class=date_text>02-28-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>07:26 PM</SPAN></P><p>Message Edited by Samnas on <span class=date_text>02-28-2005</span> <span class=time_text>07:28 PM</span>

[JarredDarque]

<DIV>I did not mention price controls on rares,  I said that they would have to be handled differantly.</DIV>

[Samnas]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> JarredDarque wrote:<BR> <DIV>I did not mention price controls on rares,  I said that they would have to be handled differantly.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>Did you see the edit I made 11 hours before you make this post?</DIV>

[JarredDarque]

<DIV>Aye sorry,  didnt catch that until a second read man.</DIV>

[SavinDwa]

<DIV>Ottomatik,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You have made a lot of good points.  There is one thing you are overlooking and that is supply and demand actually works, if you give it enough time to find a balance.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>One area where SOE appears to keep miscalculating is not understanding there is a vast difference between a "new economy" and a "radical change in an existing economy".  When they kick off a new server, as long as they don't change anything, supply and demand will relatively quickly reach equality.  When they make a radical change that impacts the supply and demand mechanics in an already balanced economy it does not adjust as quickly and in fact will exhibit what is sometimes refered to as a "pendulum effect".  It eventually will find a balance, but first it swings horribily between extremes and the swings get smaller and smaller as it starts to find a new balance.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>From a pure economics point of view the NPCs are a disaster to the economy.  Why?  Well let me be more precise "stupid NPCs whose prices are independent of the economy make it very difficult for the economy to reach supply and demand balance".  If we had smart NPC pricing that were moving in reeaction to supply/demand and availble cash we may actually have the best of both worlds.  Right now we have the worst.  An economy that doesn;t have enough critical mass to truly support a monetary system coupled with stupd NPC pricing that is clueless about the state of the economy.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>To make matters even more complicated we are actually diluting critical mass since the players are leveling at very different rates and the difference in buying power changes expontially with levels [ok, maybe its linear , but a level 20 players ability to generate cash is far greater than a level 3 player].</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If the real focus of the game was to have a sensible economy we would first need to regulate the money supply.  That means taking the simple approach "the total cash in the game is based on a combination of accounts and the level of the highest player on the account."   We would then need a way to distribute the cash into the economy.  This basically means we need to spread the csh amongst the NPC vendors.  Any cash sinks "such as rent" would find their way back to the NPCs.  This calculation would probably be done once every game hour [15 minutes?  I have no idea what a game hour is??].  if an NPC runs out of cash they will stop buying.  If they sell something then they have cash to purchase more stuff.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This would not be enough, you would still need the game to track the average player to player selling price of every item [at least through the broker system] and the NPC prices would need to vary based on supply and demand and the average price that an item is being sold for.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You would also need equality between buying and selling.  This means that players can list things they want as well as what is for sale.  You would also have to allow this to happen even if the player is not logged on.  Why?  Because we don't have critical mass to start with, but if you only allow sales between players that are tying to sell/buy at the same instant it becomes a joke.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>What happens if there is not enough cash to allow a player to do a transaction?  Ah.. they will have to use the barter system just like poeople always did ... "If I give you 5 inks and a 2 potions, will you give a set of cap, gloves and pants clothing?"</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Anyway.  Its very very hard to get the economy right.  AND the only real time to get it right is when you start a new server, its 10x harder to fix it mid stream.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>But there is good news.  If we are forced to work primarily amongst ourselves [not NPCs] then supply and demand will eventually get the nu ber of crafters in balance with what the community needs.  I can give a real example of this. [although the numbers a little made up and dates are wrong]</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Belladonna Supply</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Feb 1:  Prices vary from 70c - 2 silver.  Demand is high [everyone is making stuff and needs WROTs]</DIV> <DIV>Feb 10: SOE Annoucnes a change that will result in profits being severely limited on NPC sales and tasks.  Demand increases for WROTs as players rush to level before the change.  Prices vary from 2silver - 4 silver.</DIV> <DIV>Feb 15: New cost model arrives.  Crafting stops as players think through implications.  Demand for WROTs is down.  Supply of Bella has not yet changed.  By Feb 17 prices are from 12 copper - 50 copper for most sales.</DIV> <DIV>Feb 18:  prices are 25 copper to 80 copper as supply as been reduced [not worth harvesting for a 10 copper price]</DIV> <DIV>Feb 20: SOE announces that everyone can make their own sub components with new recipes.  People rush to buy cheap Bella.  Prices climb to 1 -2 silver by the end of the day.</DIV> <DIV>Feb 22: New recipes arrive.  people are making their own WROTs.  Supply has not yet significantly increased.  Bella at 2-4 silver again.</DIV> <DIV>Feb 25: Supply of Bella is back up, but peple are now realizing they are not making much money so demand drops.  Bella prices drop to 1-2 silver.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As you can see, the best way to make money is on the commodity market.  If you could predict this trend you could have purchased Bella at 4-10copper and sold it at 2-4 silver each [BTW my average purchase price for Bella on Mistmoore is under 10 copper!!! and yes I have been known to purchase over 200 bella at a time when prices drop below 10 copper.]</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Anyway....  I think a player driven economy has a greater chancce of success as long as selling and buying have an equal voice and we allow 24 x7 in these activities evn when off line.  The money supply should regulated in total.  It will be years before a game gets enough smarts to do this though ,,, and it may fail because we don't really have critical mass.</DIV>

[Samnas]

<DIV>SavinDwarf, I thought your post brought up a whole lot of good points about the economy and maybe shows  why it is not just as easy as some people think to fix.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I think it is actually a lot more complicated than that though.  A few things like what about "new" money from quests/loot drops?  Cant just get rid of them that is another thing that has to be factored in or gotten rid of (dont think that would go over well).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Biggest problem though i see with any economy in a mmorpg  game though is it is nearly impossible in a supply/demand based economy to make crafters happy.  What I mean is in a good running economy supply/demand will determine profits for crafters.  A whole lot of Armorers and very few people buying armor and profits will be near 0.  Now that is not neccisarily a bad thing since this likely leads to many people getting frustrated with armorer and giving it up as a profession (decreases supply and assuming demand is constant increases prices).  It would work like this for all crafters the more in demand you are the more money you make.  The problem in a MMORPG is a lot of crafters just assume if they spend time making something they should be able to profit whether someone wants it or not ( I am not saying this is right or wrong).  SOE I am sure does not just want a whole lot of crafters to quit the game until the economy becomes balanced so I am guessing they will not just leave it to normal supply/demand forces.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The way to help that situation of course is to make sure crafters create goods that are actually in demand by other crafters and adventurers so there is at least some demand.  For some crafters there is extremely little demand for their stuff so even if there are relatively few number of crafters then prices/profits are still low.  Of course that can be fixed by doing something like adding items to game that adventurers need to buy regulary, but that only works if the adventurers have enough cash to buy it.... up the loot rewards that adventurers get and then you have more money coming into the system causing inflation and diluting the profits of crafters (profit would stay the same but buying power would go down).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Somewhere in the middle is a balance that would create a smooth economy, but it is not simple to find or achieve.  Add to that the fact that the balance is heavily dependent on the ratio of crafters to adventurers and it becomes even harder to tune into a smooth economy where both crafters and adventurers can happily make a reasonable amount of money.</DIV>

[Eal]

<DIV>    I really enjoy reading a lot of these posts. I see many people thinking on ways to fix the problem rather than just berate people. In the beginning, I saw a lot of confusion on how supply and demand works, but later realized that wasnt the main issue people were arguing. The issue is enjoyability. People want to create something and get rewarded for it. Either by monetary or other means.</DIV> <DIV>    </DIV> <DIV>    This is the problem. Any changes made to the market will only adjust itself somewhere else, effectively making no change at all. These are some ideas that I heard and I will explain what will happen.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1) Having an Intelligent NPC who fluctuates with the market when buying items from players. ------> People will have more money to spend, therefore increasing prices of the market.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2) Having Items Attunable that can only can be sold to a NPC merchant.------> Since this was done to everyone. People will have less money. Prices will drop in market.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>3) Increasing Loot rewards and allow coin to drop------> People will have more money to spend increasing the price of the market.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>4)Allowing people to create more items at once------>  Increase supply will decrease demand lowering prices.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>5)so on and so forth</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>    Bottom line is using a capitalistic market. There is no happy medium. If there were 1000 provisioners. You might find 10% of those who are going to make a significant profit, while the rest complain. As I said before, the only solution is to make the market bigger allowing more diversity or scrap the market system all together. Im sorry I wish there was another way. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>    For every Action there is a Reaction. For every winner there is a loser when applied to economics. Capitalism is cut throat.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Samnas]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Ealix wrote:<BR> <DIV>    I really enjoy reading a lot of these posts. I see many people thinking on ways to fix the problem rather than just berate people. In the beginning, I saw a lot of confusion on how supply and demand works, but later realized that wasnt the main issue people were arguing. The issue is enjoyability. People want to create something and get rewarded for it. Either by monetary or other means.</DIV> <DIV>    </DIV> <DIV>    This is the problem. Any changes made to the market will only adjust itself somewhere else, effectively making no change at all. These are some ideas that I heard and I will explain what will happen.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1) Having an Intelligent NPC who fluctuates with the market when buying items from players. ------> People will have more money to spend, therefore increasing prices of the market.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2) Having Items Attunable that can only can be sold to a NPC merchant.------> Since this was done to everyone. People will have less money. Prices will drop in market.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ccff00>Any price change will depend on the market.  For example if it does actually increase demand for armor, weapons, jewelry then those items will see an increase in price (assuming supply stays constant and demand increases.... then price also increases).  In addition the attunement change would not change the overall supply of money other than maybe actually adding more money to the game (if they increased the amount vendor pays you for those attuned items ----thought i heard they did this not sure?).  Some people may find they have less money because they are not able to sell the item to someone else.... but the corresponding event is that would-be-buyer still has the money.  Total money in economy has not changed and overall people do not have less money.  The only exception to this that I can think of at the moment is if the change would actually cause people to go and buy equipment from the NPC vendors (I dont know why anyone would do this).</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>3) Increasing Loot rewards and allow coin to drop------> People will have more money to spend increasing the price of the market.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ccff00>I agree on this one and believe this is one of the better ways to help crafters.  The reasoning is a crafter needs to very few things to be successful.  Drink (maybe food), raw materials, fuel.  With an injection of money and the resulting inflation (caused by more money chasing same amount of goods) then crafters in theory will make more  money.  One of the main factors of fuel costs will not be affected by inflation since it is artificially controlled.  Raw materials likely will be to a small extent, but many crafters harvest their own.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>4)Allowing people to create more items at once------>  Increase supply will decrease demand lowering prices.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ccff00>The increase in supply does not decrease demand at all for "normal goods" (which most goods in EQ2 would be considered).  The affect would be lower prices because the supply curve has shifted and now intersects at a lower point of the demand curve.   Quantity demanded (not the demand curve) would actually likely increase due to the shift of the supply curve.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>5)so on and so forth</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>    Bottom line is using a capitalistic market. There is no happy medium. If there were 1000 provisioners. You might find 10% of those who are going to make a significant profit, while the rest complain. As I said before, the only solution is to make the market bigger allowing more diversity or scrap the market system all together. Im sorry I wish there was another way. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>    For every Action there is a Reaction. For every winner there is a loser when applied to economics. Capitalism is cut throat.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <p>Message Edited by Samnas on <span class=date_text>03-02-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:36 AM</span>

[Eal]

<DIV> <DIV>4)Allowing people to create more items at once------>  Increase supply will decrease demand lowering prices.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ccff00>The increase in supply does not decrease demand at all for "normal goods" (which most goods in EQ2 would be considered).  The affect would be lower prices because the supply curve has shifted and now intersects at a lower point of the demand curve.   Quantity demanded (not the demand curve) would actually likely increase due to the shift of the supply curve.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I should have clarified on this one. I meant the demand for your product would decrease as the supply increased. Overall demand curve would remain the same.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My ealier points were to illustrate inflation and deflation.1gp has a certain buying power. Any changes to the market will only adjust itself.</DIV></DIV>

[Ottomat]

<DIV>Balancing an economy (real or virtual) is not an easy thing, hence the interesting discussions that have taken place in this thread. This does not mean, however, that there is "nothing that can be done" except leave it up to supply and demand. Even in our capitalistic economy we realise there is some need to balance out the economy. Some attempts succeed, others fail. So far, most of the attempts on EQ2 have failed.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As far as "new money" goes, there are many ways that it get's spent (rent for houses, armor repair for deaths are just 2 methods that come to mind.) </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As far as Supply and Demand goes, this works for a real economic system, but (as many people have already pointed out) is less valid for a virtual one. Any mmorpg (or any game for that matter) has at it's basis that it should be fun for those who choose to spend their freetime engaged in the activity. It should not feel like work, even when simulating work (such as tradeskilling). There should be a feeling of reward for completion of an item, not disappointment after leaving our character logged on for hours and not seeing an item sold, then having to dump stuff on an NPC vendor for absolutely no profit, or even a loss in some cases.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Supply and Demand will not work with a fixed production cost system that does not adjust with inflation (i.e. vendors that sell the fuels and other goods at a fixed price.) Nor will it work in a system with an irregular sales base (i.e. you can only buy when the producers are not otherwise occupied adventuring or producing.) Nor will Supply and Demand work when resource supply is left up to random. A steady supply that meets demand, but does not exceed it, is necessary for the proper functioning of supply and demand. If supply is too low it over-inflates the price, and if supply is too high it devalues the price to a point of non-profitability. (Hence the reason why the government pays farmers not to produce. And I prefer not to get in an argument over the morality of this, as it is just an example.)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>One should be able to circumvent the need to sell to other players by being able to create items and "get rid of them" in a semi-profitable manner. This way one does not log off after spending time tradeskilling with the feeling that you wasted your time. This was the fun aspect that was presented by the writs. Again, I reiterate that I feel the profit margin from the writs was excessive. Originally they returned a sum so low as to make it a losing bargain every time. Then they boosted them up, to levels above what would make it profitable to even try and sell them to players. Then they dropped them again to levels so low as to make it no longer a valid method, unless your fun comes only from seeing the xp bar go up in tradeskilling. The reward for completing a writ should be increased to a level somewhere between what it is now and what it was before. At this time, tradeskilling has become more of a tedium than something desirable to pass the time with.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>By creating a method to generate income through tradeskilling other than through direct player-to-player sales, this would increase money in the system. At the present time, an overabundance of money is not an overly large concern. When it does, then other methods of monetary removal can be developed.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>A while back I played an online game which had "vendors for hire." NPC's that you would hire to do your sales for you. That way you could still play with your character while selling your goods and wares. You just had to "pay them a salary" to remain as your "employee." This would relieve the absolute boredom of having to remain idle while sitting in your house selling your wares.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>People have said that if there are too many armorers, then the supply is too high, which will devalue the product, which will make armorers frustrated and give up the trade and reduce the supply of armorers. This should not happen, since they are all paying to play the game and have the same right to have fun as everyone else.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Plus, so long as quest gear is better than the equivalent player produced, the demand for player-crafted goods will remain low, no matter the supply since demand will be extremely low. As it is, quest items often exceed the levels of player-crafted items. Not that player-crafted goods should be better, they should be the same. That would make both an attractive option, depending on the player's taste (which is as it should be.)</DIV>

[Samnas]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Ottomatik wrote:<BR> <DIV>....</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Plus, so long as quest gear is better than the equivalent player produced, the demand for player-crafted goods will remain low, no matter the supply since demand will be extremely low. As it is, quest items often exceed the levels of player-crafted items. Not that player-crafted goods should be better, they should be the same. That would make both an attractive option, depending on the player's taste (which is as it should be.)</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>I agree with most of the post other than the last part.  As a crafter I dont want what I create to be the same as what is dropped.  I want it to be at a minimum different and hopefully better.  As an adventurer though I want the excitement of finding nice drops when I am hunting and not just vendor trash.  To balance these I really think they need very nice item drops, but have functionality so those drops can be improved by the armorer.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>For example mob x could drop a carbonite breastplate that is comparable to a pristine carb breastplate that is made by crafters.  If that breastplate is taken to a armorer the armorer can work it into a breastplate that is much better than either what the armorer can make or what was originally dropped.  My idea anyway just cause I think they need to make crafters useful while at the same time not eliminating the thrill for adventurers in getting nice drops.  </DIV>

[Bewts]

47 tier 5 Artisans on Grobb that aren't Provisioners or Alchemists.36 Tier 5 Alchemists on Grobb.Of the 47 Artisans on Grobb, 13 are level 50.Of the 36 Tier 5 Alchemists on Grobb, 16 are level 50.So we have 34 Tier 5 Artisans who use up resources as fast as they can.We also have 21 Tier 5 Alchemists who grind out as many Chemicals as they can.All 34 Tier 5 Artisans can make their own chemicals at the cost Alchemists can.Each Tier 5 Alchemist is competing versus 54 other people making chemicals all at the same AT COST price.30 of those Tier 5 Artisans are in Freeport.The remaining 16 are in Qeynos.Of the 16 Artisans in Qeynos (Where I live) 7 of them are level 50.The remaining 9 Artisans use components up at a fast rate.Of the 36 Tier 5 Alchemists on Grobb, 21 of them are in Freeport.The remaining 15 are in Qeynos.Of the 21 Tier 5 Alchemists in Freeport, 8 are Level 50.Of the 15 Tier 5 Alchemists in Qeynos, 8 are Level 50.So we now have each Alchemist in Qeynos competing against 16 other Alchemists and Artisans to sell chemicals who use them at a GOOD rate.If we talk about Combat Essences in Tier 5, we have 15 Alchemists competing against each other to sell Apprentice IV abilities. We can sell to 1/3 of Professions available: Monk, Bruiser, Guardian, Berserker, Paladin and Shadowknights.Of those classes, there are currently 120 combat abilites to sell in Apprentice IV form.That leaves each Alchemist on Grobb with 3 1/3 Essences to sell.Essences are a one time buy, upgradeable by an Alchemist once assuming an Apprentice IV was purchased.Apprentice IV essences are not a priority for Fighter Archetype classes; Armor > Weapons > Adept3 > Adept1 > Apprentice IVThis is just from Grobb, and only from a Qeynosian perspective. I have 9 customers to sell to, and I compete with 23 people to sell them Chemicals. I have many Fighter customers, primarily Guardians. This is good, but what is bad is the amount of AdeptI's available in the game. Factor in the increased rate of drops of Adept3 raws and the 36 Alchemists on my server in Tier5 and you can see that I am competing against 35 other Alchemists to make Adept3's for those customers with rares. Most know a 50 Alchemist they go to. Matter of fact, even my guildies go to a 50 Alchemist to get their inks made who isn't in my guild just out of convenience since I am Qeynosian and they are from Freeport.Overall, the competition amongst Alchemists is absurdly high compared to all other Artisans in Tier5. Matter of fact only Jewelers come close in comparison (12) to Alchemists and they have their own issues with 90% of all quested jewelery being better than their pristines. This is all partly due to the inability of SOE to adjust vendor buyback prices from the get go and allowing enough time for a population on my server of approximately 16-20 alchemists to become very rich before changing the pricing issue. The current knee jerk reactions of the developers have only worsened the problem. A simple change of vendor buybacks to BREAK EVEN prices for all tradeskill created items from the get go would have forced alchemists back into the tradeskill market of selling their chemicals. The trashing of the interdependency vision by giving all Artisans the ability to make chemicals only worsened the market and has put the economy in a recession. A Tier 5 Artisan can now learn to make their own chemicals in a 2 hour period obtaining pristine rates and quantities equal to that of an Alchemist at the same cost as an Alchemist, rendering their ability to make chemicals and market them a non factor on the economic market.In the end, the solution to solving the Alchemist Dilemma(tm) is to change the fuel values for all Artisans besides Alchemists to twice its current requirement. This allows Alchemists to market their trademark item to Artisans at an AT COST price to their customers while providing a respectable profit margin for the Alchemist. When no chemicals are available, there is still the option for Artisans to create their own, but allows Artisans the luxury to purchase what is available on the Brokers all the while increasing the demand for an alchemist.If I was to consider the 4 markets Alchemists have available at the current state of the Economy, this is how it would look:Combat Essences: Irregular income~Suggestion: Adjust adeptI drop rates to raise demand for Apprentice IV combat abilitiesPoisons: Irregular income until there is a significant reason for scouts to desire an Alchemist's poisons over those sold on a NPC Vendor~Suggestion: Adjust the effectiveness of NPC poisons by 66% less than those of an Alchemist. Much like the food/drink nerf.Potions: Irregular income until there is a significant reason for adventurers to desire an Alchemist's potions during their everyday activities.~Suggestion: Increase the duration of most of the effects to 30 minutes, not the 30 seconds currently available. Modify the power of the effects of the common potions to better draw demand from adventurers. A simple rare loam 35 power regeneration buff in battle for 5 minutes is equal to that of an enchanter's clarity lines, yet effectively shorter duration and limited in quantity.Chemicals: No income until the fuel adjustment is made and convienence to purchase rather than grind creates a demand.~Suggestion: Fuel cost for non alchemists is twice that of an alchemist. No alchemist would have a problem selling a stack of chemicals for 1gp each if they sold as fast as they could make them, even in tier5. My 1200 chemicals sitting on the broker for 5 silver per chemical or 1gp a stack haven't moved in 2+ weeks. Change the way the yield per combine works where the name of all chemicals bear the same name, and the quality you make them at determines the yield. IE a second quality combine would yield 2 Golgi Resins where as a pristine quality combine would yield 4 Golgi Resins. (Chemicals have NO bearing on quality of a single combine in regards to tradeskills)BewtsPS: This obviously is keyed toward an alchemist's perspective. Other server's populations vary and Grobb being a /movelog population server dramatically shows the imbalance created in the current economic system. I am also more than willing to share the load of inks with Jewelers and Sages, or to change the yield for ink combines for the final combine to yield 1-4 inks of the same quality.

[Moriga]

<DIV>While game economics are different than real world there are some obvious issues with tradeskilling in EQ2 that need addressing.  On my server, Befallen, trade skilling is all but dead.  The lack of rewards and cost of time to forage makes the quests from my tradeskill hall to costly to do. ( Formerly , my only source of income and the only way the trade skill guild levels up for more items)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>There is no reason to buy playmade anything anymore except food and drink.  The world abounds with drops far better than what craftsman can make.  While armor made from rares may be worth doing, as a druid I need the rare pelts that everyone on the server is seeking for heritage quests.  The odds of getting enough for a set of armor must be about a million to one.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Alchemists have no product to sell.  The only thing they can make are the poisons and potions none of which are as good as the vendor made ones.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I understand wanting to reduce the dependency on others but doing so seems to have put a lot of skillers off and many have quit the game all together.  While the cost of food and drink is insane.  Tier 2 three hour drink is listed at 1 gold on the broker.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I love the idea of a place to sell off our products at a good profit that allows others to buy at a reasonable price.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I would love to see some sort of imbued armor and weapons that could be made with the addition of a stone or potion to make stuff worth buying.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I would love to see potions and poisons made by alchemists be worth making and selling so that someone will start harvesting the fields of fungus left lying on the ground.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I would love to have armor with wisdom on it and not have to compete with the entire server for the rare to produce it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I would love to be able to make a few things in quantity as I cook almost exclusively for my husband, my self and the two friends we joined the game with so I don't have to waste 4 hours of valuable game time making 4 stacks of multi hour drink.  Even if food produced in that fashion is no value so it cannot be resold.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I would love to know why Adepts drop so often that there is almost no market for sages and other adept 1 manufacturers.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I would love to know why in a game that has taken such great steps to keep the economy low are the cost of horses and houses so high?  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Lastly I would like to have the option to upgrade my room at my inn in my neigborhood to two rooms with out lossing my walls and having to move the vault stuff.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Having said all that, I feel better.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thanks and good luck all</DIV> <DIV>Morgaine</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Samnas]

<DIV>LOL Morigana you had a lot on your mind !</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Anyway I think they still realize they have problems with tradeskills and you make a lot of good points.  I will say that making it so people can "break-even" by selling to the vendor is a very hard thing to ask for.  Giving a factor to account for buying resources (or to compensate for the time to harvest) will rarely be accurate and would never stay that way as prices of resources change by the minute.  It does sound like they are going to try to start increasing sell-back prices to offset some resource costs though so sounds like they are improving it somewhat.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I think the actions they took to change tradeskills so drastically was extreme and not the best, but choosing between that or waiting until they could come up with better ideas and test them I am glad they did what they did.  Otherwise the crafting bots would have put so much money into the economy no legitimate player could ever afford anything.  Of course the best answer would have been to adjust the sellback prices to a reasonable amount of profit and stop crafting bots, but stopping the bots is easier said than done.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As for the horses I love that the price is so high (even though it means it will be a long time till I get one).  It is something to work for and feel like I accomplished something when I get there.  If they were cheap then everyone has them and what is the point they might has well have made the default run speed faster.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As for the cost of drinks on your server it does sound insane if T2 3 hour drink is selling at 1gp.  That is a lot of profit though for the provisioner and I am sure that will lead to more provisioners and the price will come down.  I know on my server on the broker I pay between 5-8 sp for T3 drinks that last like 1hr 24 min or something like that.</DIV>

[Ottomat]

<DIV>Again I state that I hope the developers are actually reading this post, since there have been a lot of good information and ideas. It is a pleasure to read each new one, even those constructively criticising my posts. I liked the idea about crafters imbuing items, and again I refer to an earlier post that had the idea that crafted items also have that option, only by a different class other than the original crafter. The ability to improve dropped items in some way would be yet another boon to crafters. Though it may be tough with the new "all items attuned" policy, and scammers out there that would take the item and run, so that would have to be taken into account in how they program it. This does not reflect a criticism of the idea, but just some thought on it. I hope that the new production cost reflection of harvested items improves things even to a little degree. I still think a lot more needs to be done.</DIV>

[Ijiamee]

<DIV>They need to put rares in bushes to give adventurers more of an incentive to harvest those nodes. That would increase the supply of provisioner's components available, thereby helping to reduce the cost of decent drink.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I haven't seen a t5 drink on the broker in a few weeks. Although, I do see plenty of T4 going for a gold piece a pop :smileyindifferent:</DIV><p>Message Edited by Ijiamee on <span class=date_text>03-09-2005</span> <span class=time_text>12:48 PM</span>