A way to balance the energy market, prevent addicted grinders and still get money for the company
Sat, 01/01/2011 - 16:38
I have an idea. At the beginning of each month, the game will offer to sell you a new type of energy-one that cannot be traded.
First, it will offer 100 of this energy for 500 crowns. After you buy that batch, you must wait 24 hours before buying another batch. The next batch however, will cost 1000 crowns instead. Each batch after that will cost 500 more than the last.
At some point, perhaps around 6000, people will begin to be inclined to either buy energy with real money, or buy from the market now that they have saved a good amount of crowns. The demand for energy will rise, but people will be able to afford it this time around.
I don't know who in the right mind is buying energy for 8000 crowns, but something's wrong with you man.
Sun, 01/02/2011 - 01:41
#2
Ah.. another thread to
Ah.. another thread to "balance" the energy market, while the main goal is really to get more energy cheaper..
To balance the energy market. See, that's your problem. The market is balanced. It will always be balanced. The market exists out of what people are willing to pay, and what others are willing to sell for. If the energy price goes up to 8k per 100 CE, than obviously there are enough people willing to buy it for that price. You not being part of that group doesn't make the energy market unbalanced.
Sun, 01/02/2011 - 02:38
#3
You seem to think I'm the
You seem to think I'm the only one that feels this way.
There is currently a guy selling energy for 7k. He has 27 piles of 100
I have seen that there for about 3 days now. On average, perhaps 3 stacks are being traded per day. Are you saying there are simply that few people who like buying energy? The demand is high, but people arent willing to pay that high.
Sun, 01/02/2011 - 04:03
#4
That's the thing about a
That's the thing about a market self-balancing. Either the price levels out to a middle ground, the buyers collapse and purchase it for the price set by the sellers, or the sellers collapse and sell it at the price set by the buyers. Give it some time and you'll see. 3 days is far from enough to let a little hiccup balance out.
Introducing an alternate source of energy just to put extra pressure on 1 side of the market (the sellers) is absolutely not a solution. Unless of course you don't opt for some sort of a free market, but rather a market that satisfies your energy needs more properly without you having to spend real money.
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As a side-note: Have you tried selling CE at the current Sell offers' price? Go ahead and see if you make a sale within a few days, then make another judgement about whether or not there are still people out there willing to pay as much as the current price for it.
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Another remark to make: It's been new years eve, I reckon the active population of SK dropped during those days. Spikes in the market prices are much more likely to happen then. (be it up or down)
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Oh a last thing to add: There is no way you can be sure what the amount of traded energy a day is, unless you keep the market screen open 24/7 and record all the data. Making statements that "only 3 stacks on average are sold a day" doesn't help making your arguments stronger, on the contrary.
Sun, 01/02/2011 - 04:38
#5
You'll be surprised how much
You'll be surprised how much energy is sold and bought. I'm surprised about how much energy people buy with real life money >_> I can see it being a very good business model. I've been playing around with the market for a while and I think it's pretty fine. It does change now and then like it is now but that's life, it happens. At least it wasn't as bad as before when its was like 12k per 100 energy ><; (That was like before we even had 5* gear)
Mon, 01/03/2011 - 11:43
#6
A few kinks
There are a few kinks in closed beta when it comes to the micropayment system.
1. How many people are willing to spend money on a closed beta game? Granted, Three Rings have said that they will credit 125% of the purchased energy to the accounts once the game goes to production.
2. Closed beta means limited number of participants, which means smaller volume. While smaller volumes on its own does not cause higher prices, it does mean that there are a smaller number of people paying cash (albeit less people buying on the market) which means less people buying large number of energy, but it also limits the market's ability to properly adjust.
3. I have to wonder that, given this is a closed beta, are Three Rings going to adjust crystal energy prices as the game moves closer to production.
Mon, 01/03/2011 - 11:55
#7
@3: Devs have stated that the
@3: Devs have stated that the energy system will get another look at in the future and might get rebalanced where they see it necessary.
Thu, 01/06/2011 - 08:03
#8
"Oh a last thing to add:
"Oh a last thing to add: There is no way you can be sure what the amount of traded energy a day is, unless you keep the market screen open 24/7 and record all the data. Making statements that "only 3 stacks on average are sold a day" doesn't help making your arguments stronger, on the contrary."
When I log in at 12:00 pm and 12:00 AM and there's still 3 packs of energy being sold for an odd price tag like 5379, then I know for a fact no business has been done.
Thu, 01/06/2011 - 08:37
#9
So you're saying it is
So you're saying it is absolutely impossible for 1 pack being sold, and another being offered up at the same price?
Fri, 01/07/2011 - 01:40
#10
People still buy it when it's
People still buy it when it's about 5900. Though, I do notice we're kind of running out of energy. Since this is a closed beta, I think we should have some measures to compensate for the lack of players (Gate creation too). It makes me want to play less and less when things get kind of crappy.
Fri, 01/07/2011 - 04:58
#11
Running out of energy? Only
Running out of energy? Only yesterday I saw several stacks of 50 x100 CE on the market. I don't think we're short yet if there's over 50.000 still for sale?
Fri, 01/07/2011 - 14:27
#12
Evolution... Your math is
Evolution... Your math is wrong lol 50 x 100 is 5000 heheheh :)
Fri, 01/07/2011 - 14:29
#13
Evolution... Your math is
double post :p
Fri, 01/07/2011 - 14:36
#14
/fail
But I did see at least
/fail
But I did see at least 10k still! :P And prices haven't catapulted up sky-high so far, which would happen at a rapid rate if the available energy would run at its end
Nobody does buy energy for that price, even now when there's less than 5k energy total on the sales board, it's 6k. In any case, this probably won't make a meaningful impact. People will just buy the untradeable energy until it surpasses the tradeable energy in price, which it probably will in the first week or so, it'll just introduce much more free energy to the system.
Really, this is just a long, fancy way of saying 'give us X amount more Mist Energy' while throwing in a sort of crownsink spin on it.
All in all, though, something needs to be done. There's no way to play this game a reasonable amount of time without delving into using Crystal Energy, which is very limited. This game's energy economy is basically emulating what Peak Oil would be like.
Oh, just thought I'd throw in, I COULD buy energy for 8k and turn a decent profit. The problem is that there won't be any energy before long. There's no reason for the people who buy energy to ever buy again. The only thing we could do is invite lots of newbies in the hope that someone buys a 20/50 dollar pack and shares the love. (Drilling for wells. Dohohoho) We need a more sustainable system.