Stimulating the economy

[morgaine]

Ok, this thread is going to be all about stimulating the economy....Now, it is my oppinion that compared to 6 months ago the economy is improving. The goal would be to continue improving the economy by using whatever assets we have on hand, not eliminating ...possibly reshaping.

Lately there has been a wide discussion about mish locate bids and how I feel that the locate bids are capable of stimulating the economy. After further thought I'm going to try once more here to balance both sides of the coin, because even my eyes have been opened wider through the previous discussions.

Let me start by saying that it is obvious that mish auctions are helping to stimulate the economy. I understand that we wouldn't want to start removing all of the valuable items from mish auctions because this seems to be the best way to get exciting gear to the active player base.

With private locate bids .... economic stimulation is not occuring until a general private bid has reached a point higher then the current auction value of something that can be netted with that bid....

locate type armor extra met aff dam 2 bid 1005 ... is stimulating the economy more then locate type armor aff dam 1 bid 505, because it does offer a higher price for a 2dmg.... though its still not stimulating the economy to a point that increases the value of 2dmg gear.

locate wear fin wear neck wear head wear legs wear feet wear hands wear arms wear wrist extra met aff dam 3 bid 10500.

the third bid is less general yet still containes a great amount of generality and is getting hte price point to a spot where less valuable gear can be sold at a higher price..... then the people who need that less valuable gear have to pay the higher price in order to recieve it....

the real problem is that
locate type armor aff dam 1 bid 505
(or 16 bids like this)
will eliminate dmg gear from being sold over the mish public auction format.

I'm completeley torn here now, because I have seen the good that the locate bid format can do for the economy in establishing a base value for gear.... but I am all to aware of the inability of the player base to understand the full functions of mish.

lets face it, the undelaying factor to the locate list working as an economical base point is competition from all ... i.e. use of the list, understanding how it works... and then competing to control those general bids that will pan out into more exciting gains. It is only those general bids that inflate the price of dmg gear, forcing the consumer to pay a higher price, but also allowing the realm to sell for a higher price; however, those general bids will only inflate these prices if there is adequate competition for bid control.

If I had to guess, Tynian's issue with understanding my theory is wrapped around this particular quandary.

If the competition on the list does not exist, then we have people receiving gear for bottemed out prices rather then actually inflating prices and stimulating the economy.

Now that I understand this point as well, I absolutely must consider all boundaries, and all options... and figure out where we can stimulate the economy the most, creating competition for both public and private bidders.

I do not believe my previous theories are out of whack, I do believe that they are exactly what used to drive our economy.... however receding player base = less competition, receding knowledge of our broker system = less competition, and less comptetion = a receding economy.

I plan to expand on this, and my previous theory through this thread, after some thought.

-Morgaine

[morgaine]

Ok. Why should equipment be more vauable?

I think this is a simple question with a simple area.

Equipment should be more valuable so people have more gold. One of the major ways, (and most exciting ways) to aquire gold is by selling something that you found. Most characters are in need of gold, especially low leveling characters who need to dual class, purchase food, pay for new gear, etc...

I guess the argument is that if things cost less you don't need as much gold!

...Sure, but it's not as much fun as throwing the coins from place to place, negotiating....bidding...etc...

I think we need to get more gold into peoples hands. I would be interested to know what the avg amount of gold players hold in reference to effective level and possibly activity.

I believe that a majority of the wealth is spread accrossed a minority of the popyulation. (big suprise there)

This is because that small percentage of the population doesnt really need to spend their gold, or they are just extremely lucky/talented/connected.


Personally, I'm broke... I feel corered into a situation where i need to go golding to raise substantial gold to cover mish bids and fines etc... though I don't enjoy golding so I would just rather not. In times past i could at least random until i found something decent...raise a little gold randoming and then sell that equipment to create more gold.... today as corri pointed out, the amound of golding hours it takes to achieve the value of a random is terribly unbalanced.


Now I'm trying to sort out a way to mend this... and I think that Mish is going to be the most likely solution, after all she is the official broker of TFC. I thought, with all the cash Mish is raising, how come she can't purchase equipment from me... as well as sell it?


I propose that we come up with some sort of system that will increase the value of equipment. I think we can use Mish and shoppie mobs to do this.

For example purposes only (I havn't exactly completely thought this out)

the value of a piece of equipment would depend on multiple factors:

1. The material flag
2. The magical power level, i.e. weak magic, potent magic, artifact magic
3. The wear flag of the item
4. The weight of the item
5. The amount of equipment the shoppie has
6. The value of the bonuses

ok the idea is that somewhere in all of this information there is a formula that could be coded to determine how much a shoppie will pay for the equipment that you offer him.

There would be a calculation of the first 5 variables to determine the value of each random item. Further, if Mish would like to purchase any items for sale over her auction' channel, there could be a Bonus value (variable # 6.)

I highly doubt I am going to be able to explain this tonight so I will try to expand on it in a few days.

1. The value would depend on the material flags, higher ac metals are more valuable, Higher AC non metals are moer valuable... and/or... some materials could be considered rare by all or certain shoppie mobs and be worth a greater value.

2. The higher magical rating of an item, the more attractive it appears to be, the higher the value.

3. Some wear fags could carry a higher value... probably ring neck and wrist slots considering there is twice as much demand.

4. Maybe the weight of the item could carry value to a shoppie, If the shoppie is carrying a lot of stuff he might not want anything too heavy!

5. This kinda ties into # 4, the more he has the lower his need and the lower the value.

6. Bonus value is where it gets weird.

Maybe Mish would like to sell some items. I'm not really sure yet how this is going to work... but it would involve mish purchasing items from players and then selling them on auction. If the items aren't sold at a higher price then the purchase then mish would destroy the item. These prices would have to be somewhat random yet the range strictly controlled.

I think this bonus value could help create a bottem line value for some gear even with little player to player competition. How much is mish willing to pay for your gear so that she can middle man it up to auction? It isn't removing the gear in an unfair manner because it i always auctioned off to the other players and will onlybe destroyed unless no one is willing to pay the price. I think this alone could help drive up the value of randoms.... thus increasing the amount of gold players have to play with.



-Morgaine