• Dear forum visitor,

    It looks as though you have not registered for a forum account, or are not signed in. In order to participate in current discussions or create new threads, you will need to register for a forum account by clicking on the link below.

    Click here to register for a forum account!

    If you already have a forum account, you can simply click on the 'Log in' button at the top right of your forum screen.

    Your Elvenar Team

Worlds Becoming Unbalanced on Goods Production

Dew Spinner

Well-Known Member
I have seen this argument over "fair" and "unfair" trades on several other threads. It is obvious that if you have to use every trick in the book, on multiple threads, to justify your side of the argument, then you don't have much of an argument. The brass tacks of the argument is that...If the majority sees it as "unfair" then it is unfair, no amount of trying to justify the opposite changes that.
 

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
If the majority sees it as "unfair" then it is unfair, no amount of trying to justify the opposite changes that.
Indeed.
No matter how hard they try to dress it up with "market forces" etc all it comes down to is the following exchange:

"Hey, I noticed that no one is taking my scrolls for crystal trades here, but on another server my other account has no problem trading his crystal for scrolls. Are crystals worth more than scrolls?"
-"Yes they are because blah blah blah"
"Oh. Can I change my boost?"
-"No."
"Oh well that's totally fair, and I like it"- AJ ;)

Just teasing AJ!
 

Dew Spinner

Well-Known Member
The fact of the matter is, is that a vast majority, dare I say most, spell it out in their FS Overview that those trades are not allowed. If only a very small minority try to justify their validity, then that is just BS! I am sure a very long manifesto is coming shortly.
 

MichaelMichael

Day and Night Trader
I couldn't agree more! The ones who continue to insist on applying capital market principles to a co-op amaze me at their ability to ignore this. The co-op members here have zero choice in what goods it is most beneficial for them to produce and trade. That is not the case in free-market capital trade systems, so those principles don't apply. Some people are only happy if they are profiting at the expense of others and will use any argument they can think of to justify that behavior. Whether that argument is applicable in the existing system is irrelevant to them.
I am a lousy chef, a worse comedian, and never would be successful as an athlete or plumber, but I am good with numbers. Capitalism and free markets is not about all of us being equal, it is about us all being different and the the society needing different skills. ... and they don’t all pay the same.

The fact that EVERY player must trade and a minor premium or discount 10% always closes means Elvenar markets work a lot better than world markets. Do some have more valuable goods to produce than others? Yes they do, but frankly they are too minor to make any serious complaint. Some do have an advantage. So what would it mean if you had to trade always at a 10% discount? Is that really meaningful?

I have the worst sentient combination possible (Moonstone, Obsidian, Bismuth) I have no complaints - I have to trade, for other goods at a discount for my boosts but I found a way, which is (for me) what Elvenar is about.
 
Last edited:

MichaelMichael

Day and Night Trader
The fact of the matter is, is that a vast majority, dare I say most, spell it out in their FS Overview that those trades are not allowed. If only a very small minority try to justify their validity, then that is just BS! I am sure a very long manifesto is coming shortly.
Many fellowships have a stupid rule. The frequency of that rule does not make it less stupid.
 
Last edited:

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
Your fellowship (and many) have a stupid rule. The frequency of that rule does not make it less stupid.
LoL, aren't you that player who buys up all of the sentient goods and reposts them 10% higher?
Making the game just a little bit more frustrating for hundreds of players in order for you to play some little market manipulator side game.
Gross.
 

Iyapo1

Well-Known Member
aren't you that player who buys up all of the sentient goods and reposts them 10% higher?
Making the game just a little bit more frustrating for hundreds of players in order for you to play some little market manipulator side game.
How is this worse than players who offer goods at a 10%+ discount regularly in order to undercut the market and get their trades picked up first?
Is it the illusion that matters?
 

Lelanya

Scroll-Keeper, Keys to the Gems
Your fellowship (and many) have a stupid rule. The frequency of that rule does not make it less stupid.
Thanks for providing me the opportunity to explain, time and again, to players just hitting sentients how to handle the trading atmosphere that you foster and encourage. I enjoy soothing ruffled feathers, and persuading folks to persevere in the face of adverse trading conditions.
By the way, in case I have not stated this often enough:
Never take trades from this kind of player. If they routinely offer 1 star, and offer 3 star when they really need something, nope, never! If we all stuck to this strategy then these sharks would starve. Ooo, maybe they might have to actually produce sentients their own selves, instead of feeding off others.
 

Silver Lady

Well-Known Member
I‘ve only just started Orcs and I guess I’d be a little trader as the largest trade I‘ve posted so far was to offer 10.5k planks for 10k steel that I wanted. I routinely post 3 star trades of 5 to 10%, but sometimes I do post 2 star, but never 1 star. I’m not trying to cheat anyone or undercut the market or throw the world out of balance. I post trades that seem fair to me. And accept trades that seem fair to me. Sometimes my trades are snapped right up and sometimes they sit for a day. But its been said that patience is a virtue, and it might be the only one I have. ;)

BTW - I take 1 star trades from my FS members only.

I haven’t gotten to sentient so I don’t know how I’ll post trades in those goods, but I’ll probably continue as I’ve started.
 

hvariidh gwendrot

Well-Known Member
i play all worlds and have plenty of goods from trades on all, the ones with sent goods as well .. numbers of stars for trades vary for the players needing the trades .. i don't see a problem needing a bot to fix .. possibly moving a city in to a better neighborhood here and there
 

Dew Spinner

Well-Known Member
Your fellowship (and many) have a stupid rule. The frequency of that rule does not make it less stupid.
The frequency of that rule means the majority views those trades as unfair, it's only simple logic. If the majority viewed those trades as fair there would be no need for the rule. You are in a very small minority and claiming the vast majority's rule is stupid, do you see how there is no logic in that?
 
Last edited:

MichaelMichael

Day and Night Trader
The frequency of that rule means the majority views those trades as unfair, it's only simple logic. If the majority viewed those trades as fair there would be no need for the rule. You are in a very small minority and claiming the vast majority's rule is stupid, do you see how there is no logic in that?
A few points:
  1. All fellowships and players are welcome to play as they wish.
  2. I do hope others enjoy the game. Helping grow the game and creating entertainment for ourselves and others is why we play.
  3. Part of that entertainment for many, but not all, is friendly and respectful competition.
  4. My word choice”stupid” was unnecessarily inflammatory. Given the earlier points, I apologize for my word choice. I was reacting to words I find sometimes to be inflammatory, “fair” and “unfair”. Anything within the game rules I view as “fair”, what other choose to add to their fellowship rules is a choice and has nothing to do with “fair” play by others outside that fellowship.
  5. The more correct statement was the popular rule “reduces the competitive performance of fellowships choosing it.”
 
Last edited:

MichaelMichael

Day and Night Trader
I will be frank about this issue. Trading at something other than 1:1 is time consuming. I enjoy the competition of that process, but I can see that others might find it an annoying and unnecessary complication. If all trades were 1:1, by rule, I’d be okay with that but I do think the game would suffer overall. My first experience was bad for sentients. No one ever accepted my moonstone for platinum at 1:1. The game from my initial perspective and strategy appeared “unfair”, so I adopted a different strategy to overcome that. Finding a way to overcome adversity is one of the reasons I play.

I only trade 2 or 3 star for regular goods and often accept all small trades. This is intended to help new players. Sentient goods are mostly hard core gamers that thrive on competition IMO. They want to be in the best fellowships and adopt complex strategies to “win”. I play to win, I enjoy the complexity and freely adopt whatever strategy wins and develops fellowship both within my fellowship and with friendly neighbors.
 
Last edited:

maeter75

Well-Known Member
Interesting thread and after reading though it , I concur about the Library, I did not think about it and that it could have helped cause the imbalance. I also did not think about the trader and those who use an AW to get the trader fees down.
 

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
I couldn't agree more! The ones who continue to insist on applying capital market principles to a co-op amaze me at their ability to ignore this. The co-op members here have zero choice in what goods it is most beneficial for them to produce and trade. That is not the case in free-market capital trade systems, so those principles don't apply. Some people are only happy if they are profiting at the expense of others and will use any argument they can think of to justify that behavior. Whether that argument is applicable in the existing system is irrelevant to them.

Here's the thing. I apply "capital market principles" because they work. Why do they work in this "co-op" game? Because there are real people playing. And psychologically speaking, people want to get ahead. "Capital market principles" are human principles -- meaning they predict what humans will do when given a situation where they can get ahead through trades. And they work here as they do in the 'real world' exactly because they are principles built not upon some artificial valuations from outside the trade but upon observational data derived from the real world.

I live in Milwaukee. I would love to move to someplace where there is a gold mine in my back yard. I can't seem to do that for some reason. Thus, like in real life, I have to use the natural resources I was dealt. So what's the difference in Elvenar? Just because my backyard has the same type of grass as my neighbors and thus, the grass has a low market value, doesn't mean I can't sell the grass if I can find a buyer. And the price at which I sell it is competitive even if my neighbors aren't actively selling their grass. In the Pacific Northwest you get bidding wars on lots of private forest even when the owner of the land has never thought of selling the lumber. My point is, that you can't change your boosted goods does not make it impossible to profit and grow. Most people in the real world can't suddenly change their natural resources and they do fine. So it's a "red herring" to say that the world and the game are different and then conclude that therefore "capital market principles" don't apply.

It's interesting to me that there are so many measures of "fair" and "unfair." The devs have decided to use the 1:1 ratio to label trades as "fair" or "unfair" (by implication anyway). This is an artificial measure since using the measure to declare a trade to be "fair" or "unfair" is not reflective of actual market conditions. My argument is that "fair" and "unfair" are emotional measures easily influenced by authoritative statements. The "authorities" in this case are the devs and most players, either inadvertently or consciously, let the devs tell them what is fair or not. Actual conditions in the market may be different that the devs measure of fair, but most players seem to just accept the artificial measure when a more accurate measure actually exists -- current market conditions reflective of supply and demand.

That most players have chosen to use the restricted, game suggested, 2-star measure, only benefits those of us who are using the more accurate market conditions measure. It benefits us in when we see people asking for scrolls in exchange for crystal or silk at a 1:1 ratio since we are getting a nice 20% market value profit in the exchange. It benefits us when we are able to offer scrolls for crystal or silk at a 1.1 to 1 ratio because we gain about 10% value in the transaction. So long as people think that 1.1 to 1 ratio more than "fair" (which most do since it's a 3-star trade) we who base fair on the current market conditions profit.

Of course, one could argue that by offering trades that profit us we are treating people "unfairly," and we should be offering everything at a 1:1 ratio. In a truly "co-op" game one would expect that. But, like most things, the game is a bit co-op and a bit competitive. So we move along trying to get our cities to move ahead and in the process take advantage of opportunities presented. We compete in most things and in some we get more benefits because we compete with others -- like in tournament rankings and Fellowship Adventures.

So the game is not, strictly speaking, co-op but a mixture of co-op and competition and that means sometimes somebody is going to benefit at somebody else's expense. Is that fair?

The frequency of that rule means the majority views those trades as unfair, it's only simple logic. If the majority viewed those trades as fair there would be no need for the rule. You are in a very small minority and claiming the vast majority's rule is stupid, do you see how there is no logic in that?

There is no need for the rule. That the majority would label it as "unfair," is and ad populum fallacy. But you do have a point. You are saying that the majority of people sense that trades at below 2-star are unfair, the definition of "unfair" should be what the majority of people sense about the transaction. In other words, "unfair" is defined as a less than 1:1 ratio. My argument is that it's an inaccurate (or at least less accurate) measure and that players ought to use a more accurate measure and not be fooled into sensing a trade as "unfair" because it has the wrong number of stars.

AJ
 
Last edited:

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
How is this worse than players who offer goods at a 10%+ discount regularly in order to undercut the market and get their trades picked up first?
Is it the illusion that matters?
The manipulators add nothing positive to the game other than for themselves, and even they only gain bragging rights since they can't actually spend the sentient goods that they squeeze out of everyone.
They are parasites who don't produce any goods themselves and just have an ever-growing (and decaying) pile of sentient goods.
vs
If a player unloads some goods at a 10% discount at least someone else benefits from it as well.

Scrolls boosted players don't love that their production has less value than that of other players through no fault of their own.
With sentient parasites, everyone gets that feeling, just different degrees of it (10,20,50% depending on boost and server)
 

MichaelMichael

Day and Night Trader
This idea that anyone can manipulate the market is ridiculous. The market price is just that. Nothing anyone could ever do on my world would make a one star trade offering Busmuth selll.

I will grant that The bid ask spread is higher because some players refuse to offer one star deals, but that is their choice. People are 100% able to choose bad politicians and pursue inferior strategies.
 

AtaguS

Well-Known Member
Scrolls boosted players don't love that their production has less value than that of other players through no fault of their own.
With sentient parasites, everyone gets that feeling, just different degrees of it (10,20,50% depending on boost and server)
I don't love it. Might even venture to say it sours my mood any time I open the trader and search using "Asking for: Scrolls"....crickets.

It's interesting to me that there are so many measures of "fair" and "unfair." The devs have decided to use the 1:1 ratio to label trades as "fair" or "unfair" (by implication anyway). This is an artificial measure since using the measure to declare a trade to be "fair" or "unfair" is not reflective of actual market conditions. My argument is that "fair" and "unfair" are emotional measures easily influenced by authoritative statements. The "authorities" in this case are the devs and most players, either inadvertently or consciously, let the devs tell them what is fair or not. Actual conditions in the market may be different that the devs measure of fair, but most players seem to just accept the artificial measure when a more accurate measure actually exists -- current market conditions reflective of supply and demand.
aj...while I admire your tenacity in making this argument over and over again...you continue to make it based on the assumption that the game is designed to "reflect actual market conditions". I keep seeing you hold the Elvenar system up against "actual conditions in the market" as if "the market" and Elvenar's Trader were the same system.
Yes, the developers decided to use the 1:1 ratio system to label trades fair or unfair. We are operating under those definitions, as set forth by the developers of this game, while we play this game. What happens in "the actual market" beyond this game is irrelevent.
 

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
This idea that anyone can manipulate the market is ridiculous.
Nonsense, you're doing it, and so is someone on Winy and Khel (and I believe all other US servers?)
All you need is to build up a decent stash of sentient goods and enough free time to buy everything and repost at higher prices.
Once you have a big enough stash you can even take some bad trades as long as you replace them with your own even worse trades.

The fact is that if you weren't doing what you do (and no other parasite replaced you) all other players would have more T4-6 to work with and pay less for their trades.

You add no value and every day that massive decay of goods from your inventory is goods that other players could have used to advance their cities, complete the spire or upgrade their buildings.
 

Deleted User - 3932582

Guest
Some people just do not believe in free markets and think the government or game designers should set all prices.
And that's basically the bottom line. As you're finding out, a lot of the people on these forums dislike free market systems and prefer fixed prices. Don't know if this is restricted to the game or is it an overall worldview, but discussions like that pop up regularly, and the end result is roughly the same. Even then, calling speculators "parasites" is a bit much. Speculation is not the same as manipulation, and importance of speculators to the markets is well established. And pulling off market manipulation, especially with perishable commodities, is a lot harder than it sounds - even in a virtual world. Otherwise, a lot more people would be at least trying to do this.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Top