| Author | Thread: Commodity Exchange |
| Ileazar Posts: 125
Location: Hans Mina
Magus Age: 118 years old
| Message #1909 Posted: Apr 28, 2008, 2:15 am |
Some observations about the market in the game. Note that I don't have much more than a casual knowledge of economics (I think I took a class in high school...), but someone may get some use out of 'em.
From what I've observed from the market, resources can be divided into four tiers based on how much demand there is for each item. In descending order:
Ultra-high demand: glass and coins
High demand: iron and stone
Medium demand: flesh, bone, wood, and clay
Low-to-no demand: gems and everything else
I've bought 2500 parcels of resources for 100 to 250 coins. Heck, the vast majority of the offers in the marketplace are asking for coins. Right now, coins are in such high demand that a lot of people are underestimating their actual value (as opposed to what we'd like that value to be...); same with glass.
Most of the trade offers I put up are for primary resource exchanges, usually offering iron or stone. I'm concentrating on maxing out bone golem research, and I've made a bunch of successful trades for bone. I've found that 2-for-1 offers on iron for another resource (e.g. 1000 iron for 2000 bone) are snapped up pretty quickly. I've even gone down once to 400 iron for 1000 bone, and it was accepted in a few hours.
I've also made similar 2-for-1 trades asking for flesh, wood, and clay, offering both iron and stone. So in practice that exchange rate can be a baseline for high demand/medium demand trades.
So what's the point of all this speechifying? Mainly to point out to anyone that'll listen that coinage is not the only thing that can be traded for. If you're looking for bone or flesh, offer up some iron or stone instead of paying in coins. If you're trying to move excess resources, try asking for a resource that's not maxed out (if there is such a thing-- n.b. I have not reached that point yet) instead of coinage. It works for me, so I don't see why it won't work for others.
('Course, it could also be the case that others are offering trades like these, and they're getting snapped up quicker than I can see them....) |
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| FatherLatour Posts: 160
Location: Rildesjan
Magus Age: 130 years old
Real Name: Jean
Email: FatherLatour@gmail.com
| Message #1911 Posted: Apr 28, 2008, 2:19 am |
But it's called money. :P
=> Use it for trading!
I've always thought things would be more stable if Glass were our primary trade currency. Alas. <_< |
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PeggaPosts: 702 Location: Jaaron Magus Age: 122 years old Clan: ADV | Message #1913 Posted: Apr 28, 2008, 2:25 am |
That's true, but the problem is that a lot of the upper level stuff needs a TON of money. My next level of Library (which admittedly is very high anyway) will take 126 hours of working to get the money. The commodities will take 94 hours, but a lot of it can be traded to make that time shorter.
And I do notice the commodities trades. I complete a lot of them when it is to my advantage units wise or to rebalance what I have already. |
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| Ileazar Posts: 125
Location: Hans Mina
Magus Age: 118 years old
| Message #1932 Posted: Apr 28, 2008, 1:27 pm |
| FatherLatour said:
But it's called money. :P
=> Use it for trading!
I've always thought things would be more stable if Glass were our primary trade currency. Alas. <_<
Heh, if there was a large enough supply of coins then we wouldn't have this conversation! 'Sides, at the moment, my currency of choice is iron.... |
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| Ileazar Posts: 125
Location: Hans Mina
Magus Age: 118 years old
| Message #2188 Posted: May 5, 2008, 8:43 pm |
Some further observations on the primaries, in order of perceived value. Feel free to disagree, but I will require footnotes and a bibliography....
Iron: still the most in-demand primary, between armor-forging, golem-crafting, and just generally high requirements for iron in many buildings. I would recommend everyone upgrade their Foundry just to get more iron to use as currency-- but the money requirement for the Foundry gets real high real fast.
Stone: an odd duck. It's just as hard to upgrade the Quarry as it is to upgrade the Foundry, but it's not as widely used as iron (in specific applications: there seem to be fewer stone-golem masons than iron-golem forgers, and stone's not used in armor, though it is required for mid-to-high level power sources). But, it's right there with iron as far as being a building a requirement. It just seems odd to me that stone isn't more in-demand than it is. (Or maybe everyone concentrates on iron, I dunno.)
Flesh: everyone uses flesh. Even if your starter golem has long since come undone, you still need flesh if you're going to research anything. Not as intrinsically valuable as iron or stone simply because it's a heck of a lot easier to upgrade the Pen than either the Foundry or Quarry.
Bone: see flesh, except for the part about the starter golem.
Wood/Clay: seem to really only be in demand by those who specialize in wood or clay golems, or those who want something done Right Now. Although, if you're trying to build up your Library with wood from your piddly little Grove 3, you're gonna be waiting a while....
Also, we collectively seem to have an idea how much money golems should be worth. That's good. When (if) there's more plentiful cash in the market, it'll be even better....
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ZugZugPosts: 300 Location: Ibonbourg Magus Age: 119 years old Clan: OTAKU | Message #2208 Posted: May 6, 2008, 4:50 pm |
Here's my observation. None of the primaries are worth a damn anymore. You can hardly give them away. I've been trading 1000 primaries for 500 and 750 of a different primary, just because I've hit my storage cap and want to get rid of the capped resource. I find that I can't spend my resources fast enough. I've research level 1 bone, wood and clay golems and level 3 basement just so when I cap a resource, I can build a golem and put it on the market for dirt cheap.
I think part of the problem is it seems newer players are the biggest buyers of primaries and the market is flooded with more established players. Supply > demand = bottom falls out of the market. |
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RigbyPosts: 95 Location: Asylum Magus Age: 119 years old Clan: STEAM Real Name: Mike
| Message #2226 Posted: May 6, 2008, 11:46 pm |
| The abundance of primary resources is probably not going to be an issue (or will be an issue depending on how you think about it) with the upcoming release of the clan system. |
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| Gryficus Posts: 239
Location: Mottonsborough
Magus Age: 121 years old
| Message #2227 Posted: May 7, 2008, 12:01 am |
exactly Rigby.... But I'm going to also assume that Clans will need money to build the buildings and items as well, so it doesn't actually solve the problem.
The problem is that gold is not on the same track as resources, thus it throttles growth. Gold IS the timesink in this game. which is just fine. BUT, you need to move the scales a little more in balance with each other.
either more gold to closer match resource accumulation (then you raise prices)
OR
slow resource accumulation to match gold
The problem is the perceived difference in the two scales. It's a mental problem, but it remains one none-the-less. |
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| FatherLatour Posts: 160
Location: Rildesjan
Magus Age: 130 years old
Real Name: Jean
Email: FatherLatour@gmail.com
| Message #2231 Posted: May 7, 2008, 1:37 am |
I guess the solution to this would be a factorial progression of the wage equation. Resource and Gold costs for buildings increase along a factorial progression, as do the returns for the primary resource buildings.
Experience costs for a level increase along a factorial progression, but the wage progresses linearly.
Interestingly, storage alternates between linear and exponential. :P
So, resource rates will continue to outstrip gold rates, unless we find a way to progress experience gains exponentially to level... :D As our friend Sterling has done. We hate you by the way Sterling, and your ridiculous piles of experience. :P
I expect Clans will continue the trend already in place. No better, no worse, unless by some miracle the gold costs for those buildings increase logarithmically. Then we'll be onto something.
-Father Jean F Latour
(As for the perceived difference, it would be much easier to convince people that resources have a consistent value if they actually did. It's not impossible, it would just be much easier.) |
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| bentrilloq Posts: 17
Location: Mottonsborough
Magus Age: 119 years old
| Message #2234 Posted: May 7, 2008, 2:46 pm |
FatherLatour has a good point about consistent pricing - the demand for gold means anyone waiting to upgrade one of their buildings will doubtless reach the resource cost before earning enough money to build it.
Impatience causes us to then try to sell our excess resources at below the current market price (especially if approaching the storage cap, where wasted production feels like a direct loss), which means in the short term more money for the individual, in the long term resource prices drop like a stone.
Apart from forming some horrible cartel and enforcing a fixed price for primaries, there isn't much that can be done about this, but it might be wise to consider whether getting that extra 90 gold coins right now is really worth it. |
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| Ileazar Posts: 125
Location: Hans Mina
Magus Age: 118 years old
| Message #2296 Posted: May 8, 2008, 2:27 pm |
| I doubt that selling primaries dirt cheap on the market now will cause irrevocable damage to the market in the long term, expect maybe for matters of perception of value, but even that can be overcome eventually. It's just what the market is right now-- coins are so scarce (relative to demand) that they're currently worth more than anyone wants them to be. Gryficus is right: the solution would be to either increase coin production or decrease resource production. However, either course of action would have to be done studiously and deliberately, and even then will be susceptible to Unforeseen Consequences. |
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TzadkielPosts: 596 Location: Broukendale Magus Age: 123 years old Clan: OTAKU | Message #2300 Posted: May 8, 2008, 4:21 pm |
A definite increase in total membership will help especially as we get a greater distribution of mature, mid, and new players will create a better self managed market. The market is performing correctly now - but it is a small and closed system so it swings wildly with only a little push. We all want the same things and need to dump the same things. If I have redlined Flesh, I feel compelled to sell it or I am losing profit. That doesn't per se create a market for it - I need someone who wants to buy it. Like a fleet of level two people still repairing their starter golems.
I really think the market just needs greater scale. |
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| bicarbonate Posts: 6
Location: Darghelm
Magus Age: 124 years old
| Message #2336 Posted: May 9, 2008, 3:57 pm |
| A way of setting multiple possible exchange options would help with some of these problems I think. Right now I have (comparatively) a lot of two of the primary resources, but very little of the other four. I'd love to swap those two for anything useful, but would only be able to post them with a single option as what I would accept. It would be nice to be able to post 500-1000 (or whatever) stone and accept a similar amount of flesh, bone, wood, iron, or money on that posting with slight variances depending on the value of that resource. |
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| Trader Posts: 9
Location: Agoia Talia
Magus Age: 119 years old
| Message #2351 Posted: May 9, 2008, 9:38 pm |
| There should be a lower bound on the prices of primaries, due to the 'salvage golem' option. More people need to use it though, I think, as I think the limitation is right now people not building golems to salvage, rather than the prices for primaries still being too high to be worth it. |
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| Jellikal Posts: 298
Location: Ogsden
Magus Age: 117 years old
Real Name: jellikal@ymail.com
| Message #2368 Posted: May 10, 2008, 3:17 pm |
There are many creative solutions to these issues. Some new locations have popped up on the local areas maps - go check them out for exchanging motivation for money, primary and secondary resources, etc. there is even one that lets you exhange resource for " good points" on the alignment scale.
I also use the salvage yard as a way to get extra cash and burn through exta primary resources.
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