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Thread: Master Trader

  1. #11
    Nifty
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    Level 55, so not a complete newbie. Besides, attacking the person rather than discussing the idea is always bad style IMO. If you had read what I wrote, you'd note the "fake transactions" thought. Ensuring that players don't abuse the system is important, especially as people around here (and everywhere else) are known to "play the system". I don't think the experienced players would or could abuse trade if the conditions are set right. And low level players HAVE little influence on market prices - the amounts they bring to the show are just too small and their economy cannot possibly compete with a fully buffed level 6 economy. They would benefit from a more efficient market and from reliable prices (for many basic goods they are relatively stable already in my experience, that is just not transparent and visible to new players and only holds true during those times of the day when a large number of players is online). The market would not "crash" on a new feature, it would thrive because the hoarders will suddenly have an incentive to part with some of their holdings. That is bound to benefit those with fewer resources: price spreads would shrink.
    BB has been good at keeping secrets and even if you were right: What difference would a few days of hoarding by high-level players make who often have starred millions or resources anyhow? Prior to Halloween people were unwilling to part with their gold coins and saved buffs/buildings for selling. Did the market change? Yes (e.g. accepting other resources for loot spots). Did the market crash? No. There will always be people wanting something and offering prices that others find attractive. That's how markets are.
    With all due respect: claiming that the real world can learn economic lessons from this game rather than the other way around must be just an attempt to prove that irony never works in written communication. Instead of trying to kill the idea, how about thinking of ways to make it work?
    Last edited by Wuselwirbel; 14.11.17 at 15:39.

  2. #12
    Master of Strategy Tierarzt's Avatar
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    What you're asking for is a group of high level players to "fix" the market values. Yeah, of course they are going to "fix" them to their own advantages. It would not benefit the trade as a whole, just those in control of the market and prices.

    Sorry, never going to happen!
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  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wuselwirbel View Post
    Lots of questions raised, so let me try to elaborate a bit etc-)

    ''Higher level players know the game (and prices); they often have hoarded huge piles of resources.''

    They do know the game and maybe they could already help others by selling resources at a lower price. Why don't they? Simple if they do they get bought and then sold at a profit by someone else so the only one who benefited is the one/s who bought the cheaper item. As you said, they know the game and know what would happen.

    ''That way the incentive is on finding a price enough people see attractive enough to buy and sell for (i.e. a true market price)''

    The true market value is what players are willing to pay. Can just see Lidl being told by Tesco what they must sell their goods for.

    ''In my experience high-level players care about XP more than about getting "rich"....''

    Really, so is that why we see so many higher level players selling lootspots which they could be giving for free to guild mates? On two of the world's I play lootspots are happily given to lower players in the guild, on the third all loots are sold even during events and when people need a lootspot for a guild quest or to, for instance, gather field refills.... Reason is they want the coins. Have even seen players gloating at having to star a million coins to add to the millions they already have starred.

    You also quote in a later section that you are level 53. It is not about level it is about time playing the game etc that gives experience. My guild got a player to level 50 in 17 days for the fun of it, does that mean he has tons of game experience?

    ''Many trades in TSO are not using gold coins but exchange goods for goods (barter), a sign for an inefficient market - money was invented in real life to make transactions easier, in TSO it fails to serve that function.''
    and
    ''The Master Traders could help gold coins to (re)gain their function as the game currency''

    Nothing wrong with trading a resource for a resource, after all that is all that a gold coin is on tso. If you look at economy it is listed as a building material, so is no different to any other resource, it is simply that we are used to buying items for coins. We could equally be trading using wheat as the base item, so why bother fixating on gold coins? You can buy anything for anything on the current trade system even if you have no coins. Gold coins have never been the sole in-game currency, that is the strength of the trade system as it is.

    I could go on but see no reason. If you give control of the trade system to a few ''Master Traders'' then you may as well blow up all the trade offices. No-one should be told by anyone what they can sell an item for. We already have an invisible version of this going on with the sale of lootspots and your idea wuld merely magnify this problem.

    PS: Who decides these Master Traders? Who ensures all 3 EU servers run at same trade pricing? And that's before you add in all the other world's.

    Can assume that it's a no from me.

  4. #14
    Nifty
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    Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer [...]. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
    Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations


    Big misunderstandings all over (forgot that most here are not business people and thus don't understand what markets are and can do): My proposal is not about reducing or "fixing" prices. It is about increasing the efficiency of the market by reducing the "spread". That is how traders call the (in TSO often huge) differences between selling and asking prices. Prices are decided by the market participants, nobody is forced to buy from anyone else. My proposal is not about free loot spots for guild members or benevolence either, we can't have one new feature solve all of your desires. We cannot change players and personally, I think we shouldn't even if we could. Everyone has the right to be happy doing what they do in the game as long as it is within the rules and they conduct themselves in a socially acceptable way (no swearing, spitting, ... You know the kindergarden rules).

    If players want to amass coins, the Trader role will not be for them. The way I envision it, the only things they get out of it are XP and (maybe) their initial resources.
    And you are right that gold coins are a resource among many others. I just felt it psychologically the easiest resource to establish as a means of exchange (= "currency"). Actually, the thing closest to a currency right now seems to be grout - nobody can produce it themselves. So, if you wish, we could base the economy on grout. That is not the main point here.
    And yes, I have not played Settlers Online as long as some of you have. Yet, I have ample experience with people and markets, so could we focus on the issue rather than start a gloating war about who is the most experienced player around?
    Another misunderstanding in a few comments was about the Traders having "control". They don't. In a functioning market, nobody controls price, just their own offers. And if others like them, they accept these offers. The idea is to make it the self-interest of the Traders to find as many people on both sides (buyers and sellers) liking their offers, so that they increase the efficiency of the market. Such a broker function is easiest, if you have either information (too complex for our purpose here) or a pile of goods, so that you can trade yourself. Thus, we need hoarders willing to part with some of their stock. Why did I mention high level players? Firstly, because I assumed that they would be more likely to have such huge stockpiles. Secondly, I assume that BB is willing to offer additional game features to them (see the "Journey to the North"). So we have a group of players capable of making the market more efficient, a game provider potentially interested in offering them new features - that is a good starting point. Nobody is forced to become a Trader, so if you don't like it, don't do it. Nobody but the players themselves decide whether they want to be Traders. If you are at the required level and have extra resources (we are talking a lot of resources, though), go for it. If you don't, no problem - just like nobody is forced to do expeditions. And there is no need or benefit of having all servers have the same price. They don't now and BB made clear that exchanging goods among servers is not an option, so we have each world being their own market. Yet, unlike today, I would assume that prices will move closer together given that the underlying fundamentals (e.g. production costs) are the same in all markets. That is however neither necessary nor the goal here, it would just be a side-effect.
    My vision (and that is one of the things up for debate) was to have players at level 60 up to trade the basic resources against the "currency", players at level 70 up intermediate resources and so on. And yes, you can see the long-term time horizon of this by me thinking of level 80/90/100 players, too. I assume that elite resources would be to someone on level 100 similar to what stones and pinewood logs are for most of us - a commodity in ample supply. Giving 1 million logs into a Trading House and then having it aid the efficiency of the market could be OK to some players, even if there was no mechanism to reward them but as economists do, I believe in advancing the greater good of society by channelling self-interest into activities that provide a benefit to all.
    Last edited by Wuselwirbel; 15.11.17 at 06:55.

  5. #15
    Dedicated Scribe sparkz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by lordloocan View Post
    Reason is they want the coins. Have even seen players gloating at having to star a million coins to add to the millions they already have starred.
    It never ceases to amaze me how illogical people can be, hoarding metric tons of one of the most useless resources in game, just because they associate coins with wealth.

  6. #16
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    Suggestions here are not really considering the cause of the issues they're trying to fix. - lack of (new) players and too many hoarders.

    I would rather have a fix BB_Alex mentioned on testserver forum..

    Spoiler
    Quote Originally Posted by BB_Alex
    There are several changes, I personally would like to see in the game, which would improve the economy building part of the game in my opinion. All of them might have a negative impact on the community.

    Let me show an example. It is just an example and not a planed change:

    Resources from adventures, quest and trade are always going into the storage even if they would exceed the capacity. The overflow will not be transfered to the star menu and will stay in the storage. This overflow will be halved every day as sort of an upkeep for exceeding the storage capacity.
    Only resources from the merchant will go to the star menu.
    This would require improvements telling you, if you would exceed your storage when buying a certain amount in the trade. Of course this would only work with the cooldown on loot mails, you mentioned. The goal would be to get rid of all stuff allowing you to use the star and the mails as a storage with an infinite capacity.

    Can you imagine the impact?


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    I think this could work well if also (R)PH would keep sending their production to star menu.

    ..combined with a weekly (cooldown) function to try get some few extra crystals from volcano offerings.
    Spoiler
    Question 159:
    Quote Originally Posted by Siedler-Junkie, Germany
    Is it possible to create some kind of trash bin for the Star menu for items that I will never use anyway?
    Quote Originally Posted by BB_Alex
    We do have some gags related to this topic. We even thought of making the new mountain a volcano, where you can burn items. It would be nice to have a mechanic which allows you to get rid of items. Right now it's not our priority and we haven't though of a proper approach for this yet. Maybe someday we might implement such a mechanic into the game. No plans for now.
    25/11-14 , 23/02-16 .. The end is coming and it will look like this .

  7. #17
    Nifty
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    If you see a lack of new players, wouldn't a more transparent trade make them more likely to stay?
    My suggestion gives hoarders a reason to put some of their resources into the market (XP).
    While the suggestion you linked sounds interesting, it does not fix the market, it just abolishes star storage. An interesting idea but not in competition to mine.

  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by sparkz View Post
    It never ceases to amaze me how illogical people can be, hoarding metric tons of one of the most useless resources in game, just because they associate coins with wealth.
    Totally agree sparkz, makes no sense at all but happens all the time.

    Last comment from me on this thread as originator seems unable to consider alternative views which is part of the purpose of a thread.

  9. #19
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    Your claim to being a business professor tells me you are qualified to teach people how to run a business, this means anything from the corner shop to a international conglomerate. What it don't tell me is how qualified you are on how a economic system should work. To me your claim is as like a airline pilot saying this is how control of a national air space should be done. In both cases you have the right to having a valid professional view point on the subject but it does not tell me that you know enough of the inner workings of such systems.

    The trade window is the tool BB have given us so that we may trade, you have asked for a better tool because to your knowledge the tool we have is not up to the job you require of it, yet the additional functionality of trade listings you ask for is already built into the trade window already.

    Leaving event currencies to one side as they are a special case we have 3 main currencies in game, gold coins, guild coins and beans. Gold coins are the general medium of exchange while the other two are intended to be used as a medium of exchange by a subset of players, namely guild members and higher level players. In real life you have people using cash, cheque's or plastic or electronic transactions. That we have players using other mediums of exchange shows that some of those with a overabundance of some resources are already trying to put those items back into the system, some resources however players gain that much through game play that they can't be put back in the system because everyone who uses those resources already has more than they need. What about the items which by there usage would be the exception to your idea like fish, as fish are used as both a trade resource and a trade token could fish be brokered.

    What you are asking for is not something which can be done with a bit of code, the first question I would ask is would it require a dedicated server of its own.
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  10. #20
    Nifty
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    Trying to mimic a games trade office to real life is kind of what we are trying to get away from, real life. It's kind of why we are here playing. With all the many online games I have played I find the TSO one to be the least boring because items can be sold for other items not just sold for coins. It generates creative ways to sell. Yes, some new players may suffer depending on their level of caution but what a great place to learn hard lessons, in a game! It's a tricky balance to make something that works for beginners but at the same time not ruin it for experienced players, besides experienced players is where we are all headed. "Good markets are transparent" is a fair statement but within context. Remember this is a game and the idea is to have fun. Depending on events and other situations in game, certain values of things tend to go up. Watching some players protest and other players bumping up against the market to see how far they can push things is a fun thing to experience. There's a lot of gooey stuff in games that even designers didn't think would come to be. I hope these many things are preserved and there are certainly a lot to mention in one post. If they were to introduce any kind of new system that stiffens, restricts, etc., we may lose a lot of the good things that a free kind of wild wild west system gives us. Sometimes I drop my fishing line into the market to gather some grout just after an event, how is a system supposed to keep up with all of the many situations which create sometimes very small windows of opportunities. I remember once TSO did not allow the trade of fishfarms, I posted fishfarms on a 6 hour post JUST before they took servers down to make the change, once servers came back up I had fishfarms for sale (lots so them) and no one else was allowed to sell/post. How do you put a value on that. It's a game so I try to do fun things. I could probably come up with a hundred of these wonderful fun things to do that makes a monitoring system irrelevant and dry. When you don't have a system to hold you by the hand, your senses get sharp and you go from there. You learn a lot about yourself. I don't buy many things much anymore with an approach of what a fair price is, I buy things mainly now using forsight. What will the item I buy be worth in a year in game. Again, fun to do. I find in one way having a monitoring system making new players even much more vulnerable in certain areas. The new players may dump a lot of items now, that may be worth a lot in a month because they don't visit to test server or check certain web sites and check whats to come. Anyone trusting a system to do their thinking for them may be in big trouble.

    I always tend to lean towards few tools with more creativity than a hundred tools providing 100 solutions. Very stiff environment. For example...Yes, the loot spots could be in a tab all by itself but how it's done now works very well without any new features implemented. Trade office gets used for other utility exchanges outside of normal trading as well, not just loot spots. Players are doing creative things with it. Price checks in trade is a great thing. You see sometimes multiple responses and debates which makes it enjoyable to see. Again, price check chats provide a lot more things than just a price. I think we might miss those.

    If I had one wish for TO it would be posts that last longer than 6 hours. Make the trade office building upgradable so at level 6 we can make 24 hour posts.

    I see TSO resources in basically 3 categories; automatically obtained, semi-automatic and manual. That's the general yard stick I go by. It's a system that has done me well over the 5+ years playing this game. I avoid adventures where possible and really play the game to build, produce, and trade. I'm not sure if I would be called a hoarder, players on my server may have another name for me I treat TSO very much as a game and have fun trying and testing things and taking risks that you may not take in real life. Playing a lot of other online markets over the years, I find myself missing the TOS one. I would have to say that TSO's market is the most enjoyable really. It has to do with a lot of things but primarily the ability to trade a resource that you don't want for something that might be of value to you at this time but not to others so much. It leads to many variations of trade. Sometimes I might make posts of things that I don't need, BUT I will take it for THIS if I can get THAT price for it, let's try. Many game pieces to play with in the TO. If I can trade an automatically obtained for a semi-automatic like iron ore or even a better trade for some manually obtained I feel good about it. Some people are on for hours a day so the automatic resources are much like the semi to them as they may enjoy mining and may have 8 build slots (max) and do so while adventuring. To have any kind of system which may not allow a player to entertain all kinds of ideas of their own may move their gaming experience to a bad one in the long run.

    "Fair pricing" in a game is almost as boring as "balanced" game play in many aspects (not all, it's vital in some areas). I don't see new players so much as victims here. I know a lot of stories players giving new players resources and even buildings just to see them post for coins soon after. Bad things have gone both ways.

    I like that you have opened up something fairly bold and if it would be crafted with enough assurance that it wouldn't destroy the great things that the TO has already, I would be more open to it for sure. Thanks for posting your ideas.

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