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