Topic

Auctions and newbiesplotation?

This is kind of a setup for striatic, but post-test, I'm wondering about the kind of market interventions that might be required for the auctions or other elements where the mighty currant is involved. (To get ahead of the responses: games do not have to reflect RL market economies.)

Auctions for gems, for instance, make no sense other than to exploit ignorance about their game function, and while I'm fine with Glitch being sufficiently open that it can be played more for trading than questing/skills, it has a potentially distorting effect on the game world as a whole. I'm sure that other MMORPGs have mechanisms in place to prevent the development of oligarchies, and as beta approaches, and the old GNE-ers become an even smaller minority (a good thing!) it might be worth a conversation about how to approach it.

Posted 20 months ago by Holgate Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Currants come too easily for an oligarchy as it stands.  The excess of currants will make everything 9999999 currants (you must pay dearly for the convenience and you'll pay because money is meaningless to you) or 1 currant (money is meaningless to me and to you, so what...ever, and newbies will love the easy early currants).  There will be micro-economies which will help prevent the 9999999 side.  But, the game will be adjusted during beta and we'll see what the actual economy will be.
    Posted 20 months ago by Tingly Claus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The thing of all this is, it's really really hard to judge what the economy needs and how supply / demand will go because the majority of people still have quite a few skills to learn.

    While everyone is still mining away, gems are going to be out of whack. When people progress to the Cooking Skills, we'll see more food and whatnot on the market, probably at dead cheap rates. That makes the value of the base supplies (tomatoes, cheese, and oranges are the most common ones I auction - typically at a hair over half shop cost) drop a bit if the seller is wise. As people start to be able to craft tools, those will become more common market items.

    As close as I can tell, about 3% of players have reached a point where they can provide a steady supply of market items. My feeling is, as more people get the the skills that take ages to learn, we'll see more participation in the economy... and finally have an idea what help is needed.
    Posted 20 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This...situation...is something a lot of Faunasphere Refugees worry about because we had some market exploiters follow us thisaway. Now in that game, many many items were available to purchase with real-world money, so it was really a huge problem because often newbies had no idea what things cost and got bilked out of real money. I understand from longtime Glitchers though that stoot is very against the idea of game items costing real-world money, so I'm pretty glad to hear that. I know currants are easy to get later in the game, but early on it seemed tricky to me. And of course when you're figuring things out, you don't remember the prices and could get hoodwinked. But I also think Travinara is right about the supply base getting bigger as well. I guess I just hope people will be kind to each other and try to not to oversell.

    Oh, one other thought though: Quite a few of my friends will often put an item up for a ridiculous amount as way to help someone gain currants. However, we've been trying to notify each other in a heartbeat to grab the item so it doesn't tempt someone who doesn't know. I still hope for the ability to "jump" to friends at some point, which would eliminate this awkward method of currant transfer because then you could just trade with the person...
    Posted 20 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Exactly FM. if you see a cherry for 9000 currents it is generally for a friend to get a house or other needed things.as you may be quite a way from that friend to get it to them quick.or just like me too lazy to subway to them because I am busy.There will always be those who like to make a profit it is just life.if you dont like it dont buy it.Discussions on this market priceing gets old and needs one to ignore what you dont want.
    Posted 20 months ago by Jellybelly Baby Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm sure many folks are sick of hearing about FS, but we had a similar problem there where players would buy items from the shops and then resell them at greatly inflated prices in the marketplace (auction equiv).  What I was thinking might be a nice thing to see in Glitch would be an indication of fair value for the item as per the Encyclopedia (either by direct link to the Encyclopedia listing of the auction item, or a "MSRP" equivalent added to the auction listing (especially since it already lists the Encyclopedia description of the item)).  While the actual values of some items are probably not the same as the values listed in the encyclopedia, it at least gives newer players especially an idea of what the game considers fair value for the item, and they can then decide for themselves whether they really want to buy an item or not. 

    I remember someone suggested putting in price caps, but ridiculous pricing can have its uses.  As RM mentioned, in the FSRefugees chat room, one player arranged to buy something like a cherry for a few thousand currants or more so that another player (the seller) could afford to buy a house.  Personally, I would prefer to see a market that is primarily driven by market demand yet also easily allows players to become informed.  One other thing we had in FS was a listing fee that was 5% of the asking price.  While it didn't eliminate price gouging over there, such a fee might act as a deterrent if too many ridiculously priced auctions fail to sell.
    Posted 20 months ago by Marebito Subscriber! | Permalink