Topic

Guideline for Food Prices

I'd like to suggest a guideline for food prices: Price = Energy gained when consumed.

I've noticed there's a lot of underselling going on in the auctions (I've done it too). I've read and been told that underselling (ie, charging less for an item than everyone else) is actually terrible for an economy, because it drives the prices down to the point that no profit can actually be made on it.

If we cooks got together and followed this (or any other profitable) guideline for food prices, I think we might all be happy to find we can actually make a profit at our chosen profession :)

(It might also encourage and maintain a wider variety of food on offer because different glitchens will have different budgets)

Posted 14 months ago by Sunshine Tentacles Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I think the EU has regulations against price fixing!
    Posted 14 months ago by shhexy corin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This might be a daft question, but why should low prices be terrible to the economy? I find them wonderful. They allow me not to worry about this aspect and pursue other avenues of the game, such as exploring, mining and, soon, alchemistry. Low prices are IMHO only terrible to the producers -- and then only to the ones who set currant maximation as their goal. However, they have the same other strategies available for generating currants as the rest of us do. What am I missing?
    Posted 14 months ago by Aineias Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This assumes profit is important to the player, when that's not necessarily the case.

    Sure, there are 50K houses, but through judicious spending and mining/resale, anyone can get there. That house is simply another resource pool, one which be customized. There are no other benefits from being 'rich' or owning a big house, IMHO - no status or office or illusions of importance as real life often affords.

    Beyond that, you have the problem of enforcement, even if someone declares Thou Shalt Not Sell Below Cost. The best you could do is a 'gentleman's agreement' of some sort.
    Posted 14 months ago by TK-855 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'd much rather see a true auction system be introduced into the game.  One in which the market will determine the price of things by bidding it up.  The current system is really just a marketplace.  And so long as sellers set a price, you will always have undercutting, either because they just want to get rid of the item, they don't know any better, or they really just don't care to make a profit.  I was seasoning eggs the other night with the intention to "auction" them and when I saw they were selling for less than the "street" value, I decided to keep them.  Hatched piglets were selling for about the same or even less than the eggs, which made even less sense.  That's a clear sign you want to stay away from the market for a while.

    One additional point to the comment about being "rich" in the game.  Selling for a healthy profit is not just about getting "rich".  That's a simplistic view.  It's more about getting fair worth for your time and effort.  There's a reason crafted products cost more than the sum of their ingredients.  Someone had to take the time to make them.  That time is worth something.  If things were worth the sum of their parts, no one would ever create anything.
    Posted 14 months ago by Joojoo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Joojoo: If a healthy profit is about getting value for time and effort, then we'd have a true barter economy: you give me ingredients, I give you stew. It's when we introduce a 'medium' of uniform value like currants that the currants acquire worth on their own. (That is, I don't necessarily have to produce anything, I just have to amass currants - kind of like the trading of high-risk mortgages and other derivatives IRL.)

    If it is understood that crafted products reflect labor/materials/skills, then extremely low prices wouldn't matter, because players will develop an idea of how much an item is really worth, and will pay to reward the crafter. At the same time, if I have a crop garden and don't mind piggies running all over the place, the cost of making Awesome Stew drops significantly.

    If people want to offer sub-par prices, I will sell elsewhere. In private, to vetted customers if need be.

    It's not an agreement on pricing between players, it's an auction system that won't let you go above/below a certain range ... so all prices are 'fair' (or at least reasonable). Not a perfect solution, but one that is code-able and tied to the world rather than agreement between players.
    Posted 14 months ago by TK-855 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Price supports wouldn't work in the game.  if there were a floor for prices, everything would hit that floor and there would be no reliable way to ensure you could sell the fruits (hah) of your labor.   Since food doesn't spoil, people would keep relisting their food at the floor price and it would be luck-of-the-draw if yours sold or not.  Not much fun.  

    "I'd much rather see a true auction system be introduced into the game.  One in which the market will determine the price of things by bidding it up."

    the effect of this would be interesting.  I suspect with all the food for sale right now it would cause prices to crash.   

    I think the main problem is that although mining is more lucrative, cooking is more fun (imo.)   I think this is borne out by the fact that many cooks would be better off from a leveling standpoint if they just donated what they cook at a local shrine.    
    Posted 14 months ago by WalruZ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If prices drop too low that it is not profitable to sell your goods at the market, producers will leave the AH and then as there are less producers there is less supply of goods and the price will rise again.  Even if there is collusion on the sellers part, someone who is not in the oligarchy will come in and offer their goods at a lower price thus making everyone in the group trying to price fix worse off.  You cannot beat the free market forces of supply and demand, and if you think the prices are too low in the AH just sell them to a vendor, or find a different profession where you can make a profit, but then again Glitch really isn't about profit maximization then is it.
    Posted 14 months ago by Mandalore Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @WalruZ: And then cooking will get nerfed, just as cheesemaking got nerfed. In fact, cooking has already been nerfed - there's now an XP cap on cooking items, so you can't rock XP by cooking one item all day long.

    As far as mining being more lucrative, I tend to cycle harvesting, cooking, mining ... but what I need at any particular moment may change that cycle (i.e., I did a couple of mining runs to get those last few currants for the house).
    Posted 14 months ago by TK-855 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I reckon Mandalore put the finger on it: Just like in real life, no cartel will be stable in a free market.

    This leaves one only avenue for the Glitch food producers: You'll have to create your own association and start lobbying the giants; maybe by donating large sums to get their attention, inviting them to "conferences" with nice dinners afterwards at exclusive locations and perhaps offering attractive "consultancy" contracts ;^)
    Posted 14 months ago by Aineias Subscriber! | Permalink
  • There's quite a bit of talk about "profit" as if it's a dirty word and not expected to be part of the game.  I don't see what's so wrong about wanting to receive compensation for your time and effort (what "profit" really is).  If you play Glitch to hand away all your effort for free, that's great for you.  I certainly won't tell you whether that is or isn't what Glitch is supposed to be about, so please don't tell me that wanting fair compensation isn't what Glitch is about.
    Posted 14 months ago by Joojoo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I honestly do not understand why anyone sells anything on the Auction Hall at a price lower than what a vendor would buy it for. I mean are you really that lazy to go to the Tool Vendor to sell? I for one love getting a deal at the Auction Hall, but I have just never understood why people would take less than they would get from a guaranteed sale at the Tool Vendor. Also for those of you that are unaware, the Tool Vendors on Cebarkul in Uralia and on Level 4 East in Ilmenskie Caverns will pay you slightly more for your goods than every other vendor in the game.
    Posted 14 months ago by TRB4 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • " I don't see what's so wrong about wanting to receive compensation for your time and effort."   

    There's nothing wrong with it.  I certainly want to see my culinary creations appreciated both ascetically and financially.  All I'm saying is that in a more or less free market economy, if there is too much production, prices will fall until producers leave the market.   
    Posted 14 months ago by WalruZ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I tend to price mine as per energy-10. I sell well...except for potatoes. Weird.
    Posted 14 months ago by Jarhaven Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Classical economics doesn't apply here for a number reasons, not least being that there aren't really finite resources--and rather than abstracting everything into economic value, you can actually literally calculate an items worth.  But currants are a misleading currency; the real currency of Glitch is Energy, as that is the limiting factor on almost all production.

    I see Cheese selling at an equal price per unit to Butterfly Milk, which makes no sense, as the costs in Energy are astronomically different.

    You also can't make the argument that as prices drop, there will be less production, because the fact that prices are already as low as they are and yet the market is saturated implies that the market will always be full of people selling things for less than they're worth.

    Which brings me to the most important reason why classical economics doesn't apply: classical theory assumes perfectly rational actors in a market.  That's just not a true assumption.  Our producers (for the most part) aren't even intelligent enough to be even in the ballpark of properly pricing their goods; to assume rationality is a step too far.

    It's a buyer's market, and it seems it always will be, unless initiatives like the proposed above actually gain traction.

    On that note, cries of "price fixing" are just silly.  As another Glitchen noted, you can't enforce, but only suggest.  That means there can be no such thing as price fixing.  However, what you can do is make suggestions on a lower bound for pricing and widely publicize them.  If we can assume goodwill on behalf of the players, we can also hope for wide adoption.  Although there will always be some tool willing to undercut the market, if most people adhere to the guidelines, then the market will be robust and healthy.  Producers will get their money's worth, and this will allow everyone to further specialize in how they choose to spend their Energy.

    If you can focus on one area regardless of your skill level (like mining) and use production from that to fund purchases in other areas, this actually increases your efficiency.  If most people agree to reasonable lower bounds on market prices, then everybody's efficiency increases.  A flawed cleaving to a poorly misunderstood capitalism, libertarianism, or something like that actually goes against the ultimate ideals of those principles.  The market is only efficient if the market is efficient.  Strongly suggested guidelines would help with that.

    In summary, I am all for the OP's proposal. :)
    Posted 14 months ago by Elenuial Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Joojoo. I agree. I've lamented this fact before. At first, I was trying to eke out a living cooking and trading things. It just can't be done, especially not at lower levels. Either it costs too much time and energy to make ingredients or you have to buy ingredients, which can be expensive because you have to buy large quantitiies. I was just barely getting by. Then someone told me the key to wealth was just grinding out the mining of sparkly. It's rather tedious, but now I have a nice cottage in Groddle meadow and a nestegg and it only took a couple of days to get there.

    What's the problem, then? Well, the game should support multiple styles of play and not everyone wants to grind out rocks for 3 hours per day to get ahead. They shouldn't have to. There are two basic problems with the AH as it stands: There is no actual bidding, just people setting prices, so demand does not up the price. Also, at higher skill leves, when you have a house, you're getting a lot of resources without much effort, therefore you don't see your cooking efforts as costing you much, so those people tend to dump cheap goods on the market.

    Selling items too cheaply is like killing spice plants or leaving rock nubs: it negatively affects the game for others who might want to play a different way.
    Posted 14 months ago by Billy McBinky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Profit ? Someone always profits from a trade or it wouldn't occur. Sometimes the profit is only a temporary reprieve from expiring. It might not always be in the form of currants but maybe bag space or the ability to shuffle and fill bags once again with higher value items; or that now a trade partner gets ingredients necessary to craft an item that subsequently interests the seller of the materials.. I hope the designer nerfing/un-nerfing continues because without real world similarity to weather and climate and other unplanned for expenses the game engine would be too exploitable. This economy has so many parallels to the real world its uncanny. I do promote the idea of a two action auction house where both a starting bid and a buyout price can be set by the seller. There actually is a finite maximum to the total production in this game and it is all players online all the time functioning as perfect robotic players programmed for maximum interlaced efficiency from the first moment they log in and forget chat as it only detracts from productivity. Since we initiate a butterfly effect with our entry day actions this wont happen. There is a constantly changing unique value on our time/effort/results ratios. A real mathematician would be seriously bored with this thread and invest in Tiny Speck with RW money right away. (LOL) And yes a glut of auctions will send the price to where the needy can afford to buy. Now all we need is a Game Designer who can artifically inflate the price of energy by the percentage of value he desires to extract from his pre-existing diversified presence in all aspects of the market and we will have a semblance of what is being protested in many citys right now. Maybe all they really want is for too many people to sit idly at their computers stroking keys for fun. Imagine the giants as utility and commodity supernetworks for a mind blowing experience.

    Gross Universal Fun! Thats the real profit on this site.
    Posted 14 months ago by Broad Ripple Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think if location was tied into buying and selling it would be more varied and profits would go up for those truly interested in being vendors of their wares.

    For instance, if the AH was just a listing device of where to purchase items.  Then you had to travel to a location, the person's house for instance.  Once there you could click on the house and check their 'stall' for goods.

    Not to mention it would give more of a communal feel to housing developments by adding interaction and the presence of people roaming the streets.
    Posted 14 months ago by Jojin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hey, I like my nice, quiet street. I don't want riff-raff wandering it at all hours. They'd be squeezing the chickens well into the night and napping the pigs!
    Posted 14 months ago by Billy McBinky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Just by anyone up that you see selling under the vendor, no you won't get 1currant per energy, but at least you'll get .8, will have to live with it.
    Posted 14 months ago by Bluigi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Underselling is always going to happen and I don't think a price floor would do anything other than make it harder to turn a profit on things as people would only consider items trading at the floor price. I like the idea of allowing players to open 'shops', maybe in the same manner as houses, but I think forcing all sales to a 'physical' location inworld would just introduce lots of unfun hiking. There's something nice about the yoga frogs being able to find you out in the wilderness. 

    I don't really find mining interesting, despite being repeatedly told it was "the best way" to earn currency. I found that you can make similar returns from cheffery, but it maybe involves a much more varied play style. Gathering ingredients encourages you to spend a lot of time exploring and you can fill your bags as you carry out the skill quests, racking up XP from achievements on the way. You have to be prepared to do a bit of number crunching too, comparing AH prices with what the vendor will pay as well as working out which recipes give the greatest return on the energy spent to make them. Joining groups that monitor new street projects and collect data for the wiki are good ways of keeping ahead of sudden demand spikes for food. The key with cheffery is definitely variety, though, I think.
    Posted 14 months ago by Dr Mumbassa Subscriber! | Permalink
  • There is a price floor. It's the price that vendors will pay for your wares, and you can still turn a good profit buying materials from players and NPCs, cooking food, and selling it to vendors... Of course, you profit harder if you gather for yourself, but food is a good racket. I don't understand how people are down on it, or worried about being able to make currants via cooking.
    Posted 14 months ago by Hopkins Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't necessarily make food to make a "profit" whatever that means in a game where the only investment is in time.  All the pixel monies you or I "own" are photons or magnetic patterns on a hard drive somewhere.  As the old saying goes, we came from nothing and from nothing we shall return," with a vengeance in a computer game that is shut down.

    The time I spend is mine to spend.  I can do it in any way I choose to spend it, including being too lazy to sell an item back to a vendor.

    It's a lot more fun to know that someone is enjoying the fruits of my labour, and that I didn't break their bank to clear out my packs.

    If you are worried about price fixing, buy it all and resell it at your own prices.  That way you have cornered the market on a video game that has nothing really to do with large quantities of pixel cash past the $50k ยข house and the poke... err Cubimals.

    Maybe in the future it will pay to be a Glitchzillionaire.  I will never be.  I don't want to be.  I spend most of my time giving random food and drinks to strange glitches at random intervals if they aren't moving too fast for me to push it in their inventory before they move.  I admit I did have someone give me my green egg back :(  I want to be able to craft green eggs and cram.

    I'm back at "slow down down ya move too fast, gotta make the moment last, just kickin' down the cobble stones, looking for fun and feeling groovy...

    ~~TJ Fuzzybut
    Posted 14 months ago by Thaddeus J Fuzzybut Subscriber! | Permalink
  • TJ, the view you just expressed is your own brand of elitism.  You speak with disdain about attaining currants, but for the same reasons you chose to price your time as worthless, others wish to price their time with a specific value.  Neither view is wrong.

    I hope you weren't being serious with your suggestion to "corner the market" and you actually see how impractical that action would be.
    Posted 14 months ago by Joojoo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i like to make food d for myself and leave it around for free for others.

    if the price of cherries rises above what i think is fair, i flood the market with cheaper ones.

    i give away expensive stuff. if some guy is charging high prices in the meadow to repair people's tools, i stand there and repair for free.

    i am not too lazy to sell to a vendor; i can make plenty of money for my own needs and also offer cheap goods to others.

    that's how i like to play. it makes me happy.
    Posted 14 months ago by flask Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @flask what a nice glitchen you are. you are the reason I keep playing this game.
    Posted 14 months ago by Vienna Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I've actually done some off-the-cuff research on my food auctions and can see that the only time I'm selling things is when the price dips below vendor price.    From now on I am going on strike and taking my stuff to the nearest tool vendor.    I now agree with the OP - something has to change here.    :P
    Posted 14 months ago by WalruZ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The baiscs are the system of the auction is broken by people who have already acheived income security. A little 4 level glitch can't make a buck selling buns or sammiches because someone who has Remote Herdkeeping can flood the market with goods that cost him/her little time to make. Furthermore, they're proud of doing this.

    I gave up trying to make a living doing what I wanted and just ground out the mining. Now I have what I need. I give stuff away to people. I stuff generic bags with useful stuff and give them to noobs. I leave stuff in the street. That's me being generous. I DO NOT flood the market with items priced lower than newbs can afford to sell them for.

    I'm at the stage where I can pretty much avoid the auctions if I wish. If people want to trade and make a buck there, I'm not going to ruin their gameplay because of some misguided communist impulses.
    Posted 14 months ago by Billy McBinky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If you want to help people. Just give it to them! If I cant sell to the player I can sell to the vendor that takes 30% to 20% of what me or other players produced. That means your helping individuals and taking from the general.
    Posted 14 months ago by Eyesonly Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The algorythim favors the giver.
    Posted 14 months ago by Broad Ripple Subscriber! | Permalink
  • " A little 4 level glitch can't make a buck selling buns or sammiches because someone who has Remote Herdkeeping can flood the market with goods that cost him/her little time to make."

    Yeah, I noticed the skills just increase quantity of items instead of unlocking new items.  Thus the younger players will never have a market for their tier of items which isn't overpopulated by higher level players.
    Posted 14 months ago by Jojin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • That's it, Jojin. It drove me into the mines, where I made my, admittedly small, fortune. Perhaps this part of the plan of the Giants, who have imagined us into existence for the purposes of mining. The Giants only know why.
    Posted 14 months ago by Billy McBinky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "TJ, the view you just expressed is your own brand of elitism."

    Actually, I prefer to think of it as my own brand of delirium if you will.  I have accumulated all of ~21k and a house  from the pre-open beta week<?> until now.  I am still about 7 days from mining 4 just for my powders(I learned Mining 3 only last week,) I haven't sold any rock iirc since the game went live/open, and that was only sold to help finance the last 3k of my 15k house.  All the rock I sold I mined using Mining 1.  The first skill tree branch I completed was AK to 7 and again iirc, I had that to 6 prior to Better Learning 2. 

    I've left more food and drink hidden behind trees and rocks than I have auctioned, a tonne or 27 I have simply eaten myself.  My glitchen should weigh about a bazillion pounds with all the food I have eaten to stay alive while grinding rock into powder...  The best way I got currants while a baby toon was to simply level and grind, not bothering with the AH much at all.

    Do I suggest that my play style is for everyone? Nope.  As to becoming the auction baron?  You don't have to corner the whole market, just buy the goods you consider undersold and either use them yourself or repackage them and resell at your price.  I've done it in other games with a larger fluctuation in economics than this one.  Hell I've known people IRL do it on E-Bay.

    In my opinion a player in a video game has to consider the time invested as a sunk cost, if you log in to the game it is already spent.  That is not necessarily a real world concept, but a video game is not a real world.  If that player considers the time as already spent, all crafted goods are "money for nothing."  Economists have the proverbial piggy (no cows you must understand) when I discuss this but that's ok, I don't force them to see things my way.  One must consider time in the real world as part of the business equation (along with dozens of other costs to properly factor overhead into the shelf cost of any item or service.)  This is not the case in a video game.

    If one is petting a tree for experience, or building the better Lemburger, or nibbling a piggy, you are doing that for a reason other than "pure Glitchian economics" whatever that may mean (and I am sure that it is vastly different for different individuals,) one does it because it is a mechanic for advancing in the game. That character is becoming more knowledgeable in terms of learning new recipes, more noticed in the mind's eyes' of the giants, more skillful in terms of a vaster skill tree.

    If you do the process to accumulate hoards of currants, more power to ya!  My point is and has always been that restricting the way one player plays the game to make another player's  way work is not the way to go for either side of any issue.

    Obviously everyone here has found enough interest in the game to come to the common ground of the giants' imaginings.  There's room enough here for all play styles if we can avoid draconian changes in the way things work.

    It is my opinion and like orifices, everyone has at least one or two, but I don't force anyone to play my way.  I personally think it is the best; but every single person who reads the forums and plays any game, each one of them individually believes that they are playing the "right way," the best way.

    In Glitch, aside from violations of the Manifesto rather the Community Guidelines, the right way to play is and hopefully always will be the way that works best for all of us, as close to our individual playstyles as we can achieve in a game that is not a single player experience.

     There should be room for all of us, a giant has pretty big dreams.

    ~~TJ Fuzzybut
    Posted 14 months ago by Thaddeus J Fuzzybut Subscriber! | Permalink
  • At the risk of breaking the Community Guidelines: "Buy Orders" - when buyers are also competing for the supply of commodities, rather than just sellers competing for the supply of currants, then prices will find their level.

    In the meantime, the auction reflects negative value of labor, and we're all driven to grind it out in the mine.  
    Posted 14 months ago by Yarrow Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I found an empty bag today--I assumed someone dropped it. I picked it up, put food and some treats into it, and then put it back onto the ground.

    I don't want to sell to the vendors. Sure, it would be faster and Maybe I'd make more money but I'd rather pass on the food to someone who will eat it and appreciate it instead of churning it back into the system.
    All cheffery has cost me is time--I enjoy learning the recipes, I enjoy sharing new food with others, and I enjoy giving stuff to those that need it.

    I like this game because it's so different from my previous MMO's--there's no duels, no fighting, no killing--it's about cooperation and caring for other characters and things. I'm not here for the money, I'm here for the fun. I love being a little glitch and petting trees and showing kindness to strangers. I'm not here for currants--I understand that others may be, well, they can sell theirs to the vendors and make more back then. Or they can open a market in-game and sell them to people there.
    Posted 14 months ago by Masco Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Wow. Heavy. Here I thought I was just spending a few hours, playing a game. Never realized so many people took it so seriously. Is there an OccupyGroddle Forest in the future?... ;)
    Posted 14 months ago by MaxieMo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • TJ, I appreciate your admission that everyone is entitle to his/her way of playing. Of course, your action of dumping goods on the auction means that you deliberately make it impossible for someone to play their way. You've just done what you say shouldn't be done, made someone else's game hard to suit the way you want to play. I guess talk is cheap too.
    Posted 14 months ago by Billy McBinky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The problem I have with selling food at auction at sub-vendor buyback prices is that it sells right away, which means that someone has used a bot to buy it and will then walk it to a vendor to sell.   That's not 'helping an individual', it's just enabling arbitrage.   I might as well visit the vendor myself. 

    What I would really like is a few open-air food fairs that cooking specialists could drop in on and sell their stacks of goods.    If one were established, Glitches would know when and where they could connect with other glitches to buy food directly from the producers, cutting out the auction manipulators and meal vendors.   

    Would anyone be interested in helping to form the First Glitch Farmers Market Association?
    Posted 14 months ago by WalruZ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't "dump" anything on the AH aside from music blox - they are worthless to me past the badges.  I price anything I sell at or near the bottom price listed - I don't want it if I am selling it.  The rare occasions I price anything at "fair market value" like the Spice Beans that I just got back;  well, I get them back.

    I give away far more than I sell, and if that nerfs someone's playstyle well I guess talk is cheap, but the stuff I give to others is free.

    I do that in real life too, so I am not about to stop doing it in a game.  My friends have variously called me a hippie and a Pollyanna in real life for my take on this thing we call "Reality."  I don't need to be a fatcat to be happy with where I am at in life.  I don't have to have a Sagan currants in Glitch to feel complete.

    And I made my points for my play style, I don't like bickering and I am cognizant that many people here don't agree with me, I can live with that.

    I am one little glitch in amongst the thousands, if my playstyle hurts anyone by selling some items below some magical fixed price of imaginary profitability, it is me that it concerns and my lack of the currants I could have made from a higher priced sale. 

    Not anyone else.

    I, a single player, neither a spokesman for nor a member of any organized anarchic (I really love the juxtaposition here of controlled chaos)  anti-capitalist Glitchen movement,  do not a market make or disrupt.

    But if there are enough who play as do I perhaps the price-fix argument isn't really the majority viewpoint of players?

    I have spent a grand total of 4 hours mining maybe a little more but not much.  All the mining though has been in the Groddle Heights (except when I was getting the Ilmenskie Completist badges.)  I only mine to craft (powders, I haven't even learned engineering.)  I craft to give things away, I make currants by harvesting, levelling, and selling music blox and food and drinks at whatever price I feel is appropriate once in a while.

    Me? I am trancing out with some Irresistible Force in my ears, nibbling my piggies, blowing a few minutes of my life down the drain and smiling about the insanity of life.  Like the last "Economics now, or the world will end thread" I am done with this topic, thanks for caring about or being pissed off enough about my thoughts to bother to read them.

     And I already "Occupy Groddle" LoL.  It is where I live.

    Have fun whichever way you play.

    ~~TJ Fuzzybut

    Edit:  All that aside the botting stuff is definitely, IMO, against the TS credo and I hope Stoot and the Gang will smack those folks hard.  Releasing the API is a double edged sword, it cuts both ways making it harder to enforce the anti-botting regulations against Auction Bots.
    Posted 14 months ago by Thaddeus J Fuzzybut Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @T Fuzzybut

    You may want to read through this thread, in which stoot said (about the auction bots): Ping's script is exactly the kind of thing we'd like people to build with the API (and what I hoped would happen with auctions).
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @ WindBorn

    I remember skimming that thread once - thinking that's not a thing I would have encouraged or supported as a developer.

    I don't make the decisions here (and I hear a chorus of Thank Humbaba's out there somewhere) but I think that he needs to review that post against the community guidelines TS just published.

    I am leaving this thread now, wouldn't have stopped back but I saw your avatar name and grew curious.

    ~~TJF
    Posted 14 months ago by Thaddeus J Fuzzybut Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Actually, the ridiculous thing is not the marketplace (I won't deign to call it an "auctionhouse"), but the vendors.  Let's face it... you mine and then you can vend your sparkly and the products thereof for mucho dinero. Your energy is magically transformed into currants when you mine your stuff and haul it off to Cebarkul.

    On the other hand, this isn't the case for food. Especially cooked food. You get no boxes or gems for turning raw ingredients into fancy dishes and, when you sell it, the price of the dish is approximately the price of the ingredients you put in after you account for the food you eat to keep yourself making, you know, food.

    Drinks are the worst. Cocktail crafting is what you do before the day's end so that you don't waste excess energy and tomorrow's mining goes a little more smoothly. No activity asks so much and provides so little as shaking up a batch of Cosma-politans or Cloudberry Daiquiris.

    This, IMHO, is the fundamental imbalance in the Glitch economy... as long as processed goods don't command a significant premium over their raw materials, then people may as well gather... there's no real place for manufacturing in the game because there's no viable way for people to thrive economically based on manufacturing.
    Posted 14 months ago by Blitz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • In general, I'm all for people doing whatever they want, but I keep seeing this facile argument for total freedom along the lines of, "Hey man, if people just play how they want, then it's all good with me."  Nobody is saying you shouldn't play how you want--but you think about the balance of personal freedom with communal decency.  Basically, in terms of the market, there are a ton of ways to play.  You can try to sell ridiculously high.  You can undercut everyone.  You can give things away on the street.  Or you can even post auctions at extremely low prices, below even what vendors offer.  Whether you believe your actions to be benevolent or malicious, you are doing both harm and good at the same time.  Beyond that, though, by "playing the way you want to play" you are actively keeping other people from playing the way they want to.  If you flood the market with cheaper-than-cost goods, you keep those of us who are interested in at least seeing no losses on our goods from being able to do so.

    So, how is it fair that you get to play the way you want to play, but other people don't?  I guess freedom only counts when it benefits you, huh?

    Let me try to explain with a metaphor: studying in the library.  When people study, some people prefer quiet, and some people prefer to chat with other people.  Some libraries have a no-talking rule so that the quiet people can study.  Some libraries allow people to talk as much as they want.  In the latter libraries, quiet people can still study, and talking folk can talk.  If the talking people are considerate and reasonable, both groups can happily accomplish their goals of studying.  But if enough people decide to chatter, the noise level grows, and even if people have the best intentions, quiet people are forced out to study by themselves.  Not to mention, there may be some people who believe everyone should be free to make as much or little noise as they want, and so walk around with a bullhorn to occasionally set the noise level where they wish.

    In this metaphor, a no-talking rule is like price fixing.  The Glitch library has no rule against talking, and nobody wants one.  But if everyone is flooding the market with at-cost goods, it keeps those who want to make a profit from playing.  The talkers are shouting out the quiet people.  

    Nobody is trying to limit your freedom.  You can play how you want; we couldn't stop you even if we wanted to (and we don't).  All anyone is asking is for a little bit of civil consideration so that playing styles other than yours can enjoy the game.  If you really believe in freedom and fair play, back it up playing in a way that enables more people to enjoy the game and not just yourself.
    Posted 14 months ago by Elenuial Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Holy moley! I did not expect this level of response! I haven't read everyone's post yet, but I'd like to say - I think Elenuial actually said what I was thinking far better than I did - Thanks Elenuial!
    Posted 14 months ago by Sunshine Tentacles Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Drinks seem to give good favor
    Posted 14 months ago by moggins Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @TJ Fuzzybut

    Please notice that even though the auction API app was introduced several months ago, the topic of this thread is why prices are so low.  I'm curious what you think the advantage is for people using the app? 
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink