EC Shop

[Rusty]

Seeing as there has been little interest in this competition, and only a few suggestions have been made, I guess I'll just have to suggest a good old update that has been knocking around for years.

Inflation is still happening in NCW and EC prices are still getting higher and higher, even with the new market system dampening the effect. Supply and demand dictates that the smaller the supply there is with respect to demand, the more the price will fall. Therefore, we should supply lots of ECs, in the form of a game owned 'shop' where you can buy lots of ECs, and inflation will go away. The arguments for this have been repeated so many times that I should probably have them copied to a .txt file so I can bring them out when needed However, for those of you new to these debates:
1. It will put a roof on the head of EC prices as no one will pay more in the market than the price in the shop
2. It will remove millions of CDs from CW and stop inflation
3. At the end of old CW, one was implemented and it successfully brought the EC price down overnight.
4. I'm sure there's more but I've forgotten them

Now, we know it is technically possible because, as mentioned, it was implemented in the last few days of OCW and it worked brilliantly, so Aoen should have no trouble approving it on technical reasons Note that this does not imply an unlimited EC store, but I would suggest one that was unlimited in the everyday sense eg 100 max per day. This would avoid people 'buying their share' every day, which would happen if it was as low as 20, but not so much that one person could become #1 from simply buying a heap of them. It may also work well with a controversial idea I will post in the normal suggestions forums when I get a chance (link will be provided here when i get the time )


New twist to it:
(Note that this is an additional idea of mine and I am willing for it to be scrapped from the final draft of the suggestion should it not be liked/technically possible. It should in no way take away from the main idea above).

One problem that appears is that as market prices change over time, so should the EC store price. Admins understandably can't be bothered to change the price all the time, so why not introduce a changing price dependant on the total ECs and CDs in the game?
e.g Currently the totals stand like this:
Money: 1,433,054,986
Energy Charges: 41,113
So, lets say the price in the EC store is dictated by dividing the total money by the total ECs, then multiplied by some constant (say 5 for now)
Price in shop = (1,433,054,986/41,113)*5= 174,282 Which is in the realms of the market price.
Now say someone makes a bunch of ECs (1,433,054,986/42,000)*5= 170,601 and the price drops, encouraging people to sell in the market for less (more supply, price goes down)
Now lets say a lot of people hoard their money for a while in their bank/gang bank (1,500,000,000/42,000)*5= 178,571 and the price goes up, encouraging people to not hoard and counteracting this hoarding effect by making the value of each CD go down.

This would add an interesting dynamic to the store and would make the market act more like a real market, while now it works on a weird effect of 'the more things on sale, the higher the prices get'. With this system, if there was more supply the prices would be forced down by the decreasing shop price. Also, if inflation continued, the shop would react without the admins having to bother with adjusting it!

Anyway, the second part is just an idea and can be removed if unpopular/hard to code, but I can't see any (technical) objections to the first part so hopefully it will be approved

[PaPPy]

didnt we try this before the reset and ec prices still continued to rise....

[ten]

The only solution is more players making more ecs to make money and common sense when purchasing, that means the market has to be permanently swamped with cheap ecs to prevent greed and foolish spending on high price ecs.

[michaelarby]

I like how the idea sounds at first. But its a lot more in depth than it first sounds- there are a lot of hidden obstacles.

i mentioned in another thread that inflation is caused because theres no real way for money to filter out of the economy- since ECs are such a commonly used commodity this would indeed benefit the in game economy if you could buy them for cash- but NOT if there was a daily purchase limit. Although this sounds good in theory- it would be more damaging than anything else. Rich players could afford to buy 100 ECs per day (or whatever limit there was) whereas newer players couldnt- this will speed up the class divide between strong and weak players. The rich will buy their limit, and but still go to the market place and buy user generated ECs. The market place ECs will still be subject to the same variables as the current system, and so prices will still steadily rise.

However- this presents us with another problem. Say a new player buys 5 ECs from the shop at a fair set price. Rather than use these themselves they could sell them at a higher price to the richer players who already bought the max number from the shop. thus the prices in the market still rise as there is still a demand from competitive players.

In summary:
With a purchase limit: Rich players will buy the max daily ammount, poor players wont- this gives the rich a clear training advantage. After reaching their daily limit rich players will still pay hand over fist to buy more marketplace ECs whatever the cost, steadily causing inflation. New players can sell Shop ECs on the Marketplace for a profit, and still have their own generated ECs to sell, further damaging the economy.

Without a purchase limit: The marketplace will die. The prices on the marketplace will be lower than in the shop, since no one will pay more for a marketplace EC than a shop one. Also- the clever player who wants to stay at the top will pay for the ECs in the Shop and have their money removed from the economy rather than give it to another player. Thus newer players lose their main source of income.

In order to balance the economy, the players have to pay for something that they cant make a profit off later- Thats why I think you should be charged cash as well as energy for training stats. If you buy or make an EC, you can sell it for profit, but if you pay to train your stats, the money is removed from the economy altogether.

[Rusty]

@michaelarby: Am I right in saying you're someone who has recently come back to the game, having played a long time ago? Because much of this theory was debated while you were gone So much so that we actually brought in a limited EC shop for a while, then an unlimited one post reset announcement.

Although this sounds good in theory- it would be more damaging than anything else. Rich players could afford to buy 100 ECs per day (or whatever limit there was) whereas newer players couldnt- this will speed up the class divide between strong and weak players. The rich will buy their limit, and but still go to the market place and buy user generated ECs. The market place ECs will still be subject to the same variables as the current system, and so prices will still steadily rise.
However- this presents us with another problem. Say a new player buys 5 ECs from the shop at a fair set price. Rather than use these themselves they could sell them at a higher price to the richer players who already bought the max number from the shop. thus the prices in the market still rise as there is still a demand from competitive players.

You're right, this did exactly happen. When a limit of 20 ECs per day was put in place only for subscribers of donations, those few people bought their whole share then instantly put it on the EC market. Due to the odd market forces of CW this did push the price up and, as they were then brought by older players, increased the divide. This is why the limit needs to be virtually unlimited ie 100+ so that people can't afford or don't need to buy their daily limit, however avoiding a superdonating situation where a big rich person can buy a heap and use them all in one go.

Without a purchase limit: The marketplace will die. The prices on the marketplace will be lower than in the shop, since no one will pay more for a marketplace EC than a shop one. Also- the clever player who wants to stay at the top will pay for the ECs in the Shop and have their money removed from the economy rather than give it to another player. Thus newer players lose their main source of income.

You assume players will simply stop selling ECs. They won't. In fact, they'll just sell for a lower price, which is what would have happened immediately after the limit was removed had CDs not become instantly worthless
If the market is not willing to sell then raise the EC store price until it is profitable to sell ECs from the market. And I doubt that either high ranked players care who they are buying their ECs from beyond price or that they will be threatened by low ranked members who are selling them enough to prefer to buy from the store, and high ranked players wouldn't be selling ECs, so there will still be a need for the market

-- Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:46:06 +0000 --

didnt we try this before the reset and ec prices still continued to rise....

Yea, but that's because it was limited. Raise the limit high enough so it is effectively unlimited and it will work well.

The only solution is more players making more ecs to make money and common sense when purchasing, that means the market has to be permanently swamped with cheap ecs to prevent greed and foolish spending on high price ecs.

NCW promised new players, yet they have not been forthcoming. This will have to do in lieu of them (although that would be a better solution).
I still have trouble accepting this 'greed' model of the market, as it implies that it is not the market forces of supply and demand and can be solved through fixing CW's social consciousness rather than it's economy. Rusty's 1 billion CD prize for an altruistic market model is still up for grabs if you want to prove me wrong

-- Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:46:58 +0000 --

Oh, last thing: It would work well with my other suggestions which I promised earlier viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2894