People's Prices vs The Zero Pricing Guide

[Simplistic]

I just read a thread regarding a character wanting to sell a few items and offering them at a cheaper cost than the pricing guide. I'm a bit confused at the altercation because a few valid points have been brought up that I've noticed in the game. I completely agree with having a standard for selling items so that people don't drive prices so low that no one can compete ... especially the low level PCs that don't have the ability to gain the resources as easily or crafting levels to make the items as easily/quickly (lowering prices would keep low level people from ever being able to become merchants until they became rally good in the skill).

I'm not sure this pricing guide idea is working though. My example i'm giving happened IC about two hours ago. A player asked me for a cougar bag that I have for sale. I did not know of the pricing guide and offered 800 gold for the item which the player excepted. A second player overheard the conversation and said I robbed him because he bought 3 bags for 750 gold. Now that i've seen the pricing guide. It says I should have sold it for 2000 gold. Sorry about that

what i'm curious about is how Layo will control pricing since PCs offer prices in tells that are lower than this pricing guide. Another example would be me buying my iron longsword for 250 gold because he wanted to get rid of it, and I was asking around for one in the game. These are only a few examples of prices that are lower than the pricing guide. Not sure if i'm uder the gun on this but i've been offering healing potions of moderate strength for 30 gold each. I know where I can buy belts of cunning for 1500 and type I & II enchantments for 3500 and 7000 respectiviely.

It seems like this is a deep issue because i've seen people comment in the trade hall about lower prices before. Someone i've made purchases through IC has been repremanded (sort of) for doing something that a lot of people are doing, and I just hate seeing anyone get in trouble for trying to compete with these black market prices that HAVE already ruined this pricing guide concept. Now that i'm aware of the pricing guide 'guideline', i'll adjust my prices accordingly  ... and i'll bet I have a hard time finding buyers as well.

[Rayenoir]

As I understand, the basement prices are there because the economy here on Layonara already crashed once (long before my time?).  A problem that I see is that Armor (both tailoring and metal) and Weapon (both ranged and melee) crafting is a static thing that's very popular.  Unless you go running around with rust monsters, there's no good way to make these trades which require a lot of practice and items made to reach higher levels disposable.  Unlike Alchemy or Scribing or Woodcrafting (I speak of arrows here), which are disposable tradeskills, the results of tailoring and smithing are just going to pile up with no use.  On the other hand, someone deeply involved in the scribing trade (such as myself) has a source of income *and* firepower all set to go, and since they're one-use items, all I have to do once they're used up is go make more and advance in xp at the same time.

[Simplistic]

Right ... my issue that i'm talking about here has to do with those people going lower than the pricing guide to the point 'L' had to tell this person to adjust his prices accordingly. I understand and respect the concept of the pricing guide and have no issues following it. I just think it has already gone overboard (or under board in this case ) and am curious how this issue is handled.

I've seen this person in game for as long as i've been on this server, and he has always been a helpful and fun PC. He is trying to compete on his own against these lower prices and ends up being the one getting in trouble. In my opinion, he wasn't the one doing the wrong because he is actually advertising making his prices clear while trying to compete with all the people out there selling too cheap and doing it secretively. He became a victim to the problem that already exists on the server. I'm not saying 'L' is wrong because he is only trying to keep things fair for all players. The problem is that the issue is already a deep one. There are prices out there cheaper than what you'll see posted in any trade thread.

People aren't going to turn in someone for selling them an item cheap because they just got a bargain. And sells happen in TELL mode all the time with cheap prices ... so those of you doing the right thing, are gwetting sold out by these 'black market' prices.

[Gilrod]

Simplistic - 10/27/2005  2:27 PM

People aren't going to turn in someone for selling them an item cheap because they just got a bargain. And sells happen in TELL mode all the time with cheap prices ... so those of you doing the right thing, are gwetting sold out by these 'black market' prices.

So true...

To bad there is not a Mistone Trade Commission launching sting operations!  

There is always something to say about taking the high road.  In the short run you may feel like a sucker, but in the long run you build a respectable reputation that makes it worth it.  I myself, have not always taken the high road, but I try to (and usually feel guilty when I do not -- definitely not worth the guilt).  

[Simplistic]

hahaha ... I love the idea of a stinger operation ... might be fun

[LoganGrimnar]

make waepons and armor breakable... it will last so many hits + a random die roll and then it will brake. there can be more to this such as a skill that will ad a modifer to the save vs break. This will for shure get the markit moving. make the different types harder to break.. copper will break very very easy.. its so soft it will not last long at all, bronxe is far better then copper, like moving from rubber to plastic. Then iron, iron will last a farely good amuont of time, and with the skill maintain weapon it will last for most of your chars life, if maintained. Adimantium is likly just a bet better then iron, and Mithril if anyone ever gets a mithril anything, it will never break..

This can work for armor and Bows as well. As well s many other items that should ware out over time.

This will get the markit moving all over, people will need new armors, new weapons, new enchantments for these armors and weapons. The big issue i see here is that most wont have the coin to pay for this type of stuff over and over again. Now that is both good and bad. But if it can work id see it put into the game, woud make things very interesting... next time you hit that oger you axe shaft might bust.. oh no!

[Rayenoir]

Methinks that such suggestions should not be made by wizards who haven't multiclassed into a fighter class, perhaps...

[Doc-Holiday]

Weston hates you now

[Etinfall]

not sure if it is possible but it would be cool to have the breakable items like you said Logan. And maybe the crafter can take a feat to have any weapons or armor(different feat) they make be tougher. That would help stop everyone who can from crafting. For that adamantium sword with a +2 enchantment that I want some day, I would wait to buy from an experienced crafter with a few feats to help make it last. And it would be horrible to lose my mahogany bow to breakage but that is real. Bows break. crud, I need to use my old oak till I can earn enough for a replacement.

all that said, it sounds impossible to code. But so does a persistant world where I can have a character evolve with the world. But we have it. Thanks to more patient and smarter people than I.

Etinfall

[Variable]

I think breakable equipment was suggested before but (i think) that it was said that it would be hard to code and would create massive amounts of lag because it would have to run that script every time a battle occurs,

but it would make things very interesting  

[Zhofe]

The economy didn't really "crash" I don't... just some things were too easy to make. Now things are a bit harder to make, and so people are less apt to sell things for ridiculously low prices. There is really no way to police the economy, so players need to do it themselves really.

[Ar7]

This is a common sense issue. People should follow the price guide, as it gives most of the prices correctly. Now if the person doesn't want to buy for the price you ask, don't sell. Sure, you won't gain gold, but you will help Layonara have a stable economy. I don't remember the last time I sold a rod or a bag, why? Because people can buy them at a much lower price.

If we want to fix this issue, then every crafter must do its part and begin selling things for the actualy price.

PS. an iron sword for 250? That guy should get a warning!

[ZeroVega]

Pssst! ZV here... you can blame me for the pricing guide. I haven't updated it as often as I should and a lot of those prices I pretty much used my guestimating skills to figure out a price. 2'000 is kinda high and I doubt anyone will ever buy one for that much.
  Check the title and you'll see it's a "Rough Pricing Guide" not "Accurate Pricing Rules." Just there to give you a "neighborhood" of prices to be in. Of course everyone sells for less and sometimes more, it's to be expected. What hurts the economy is people who turn out 50 million items and tries to unload them all by selling them for dirt cheap. Worry not, sounds like a fine deal you made to me.

[miltonyorkcastle]

*chuckles*  you don't even want to know what I was charged for one piece of diamond jewlery.  and it wasn't on the cheap end.  let's just say that piece of jewlery could have put Cole into a house (not that he'd ever want to get a house).

[Rasterick]

I have been following these two threads with interest. There is some very valid points, and as I can gather, they raises some very emotive issues and questions. I joined this server nearly a year ago, and one of the reasons I did was the advertisment which stated; ' You have a chance to change the world'. SO what Im getting at is this:

Undercutting of prices happens in the real world, it is dealt with in various ways, some less savoury than others. Why cant it be done here,  if people are so concerned about the economy, then in game do something about it, threaten, cajoule, dis-credit (all in game, and in character).

Like the real world world, distribution of wealth is not even, there are some in game characters that have untold gold, while there are those that dont have two pennies to rub together. Everyone strives to achieve something in game aside from the excellent RP that takes place. It is often crafting items that they hope will make them rich, and with riches come better items, but without the demand, the supplies become ushiftable, so in order to shift them, the prices come down. I can understand peoples concerns regarding fragile economies, and like wise I can sympathise with those that spend long hours crafting to find that their dream of betterment is not being achieved.

Whats the answer? one solution may be to somehow limit the amount of storage available to individulals, so there is not a large surplus of on-hand stock. If I remember correctly in medieval times, most individual weapons were made to order, tailored to the individual, and not picked off a shelf like a tin of beans. All surplus stock would be passed through the pawn brokers, to distribute to the armies. (and maybe here they could offer a slightly better price than they do, maybe introduce a merchant like script like that used by the ox seller), with they pawn brokers offereing more realistic prices. Limit people to one or two trades, reduce the jack of all trades situation we have at the moment, this will then force people to RP trade, create supply and demand and revitalise the economy.

Only my thoughts on a very prickly subject.

Pete

[miltonyorkcastle]

and on the note of storage, houses are freaking huge!  whatever happened to one-roomed cottages and log cabins?

[Zhofe]

As for small houses -

I like large houses. It gives me the opportunity to share my house, or to, without DM intervention, build an inn and tavern with rentable rooms, a stage, a merchant area, and a bar filled with home crafted drinks to create an excellent player driven RP even the like of which has not really happened before ....

As for limiting trades -

Sometimes, the only reason I even play is to go out and do some crafting stuff. I like the fact that I can make my own sandpaper, or pies, and that my character's tradeskills have evolved with him. Had I had to pick two or three tradeskills on creation, I would have taken weaponsmithin and armorcrafting. I would have never have been able to take up woodcrafting by being inspired by Enzo, and I would never have been able to take up cooking to supply for the Leilon Arms.

As for limiting storage -

Okay, maybe there is a point here, but what about keeping things for sentimntal value? What about Quin's iron sword that he named Andraia? The sort of thing he doesn't want to just throw away, sell, or give away on a whim. He wants to keep it, and cherish it, and pass it on to someone. What about all the instruments that Acacea made for him, and that aventurine ring he made and wanted to keep? His Toranite flag? And the necklace and bracers he got from an old quest. What about his old version armor? His journal? His clothes? His fishing-pole? Yeah, you may keep one person from storing that many adamantium ingots ... but what about we who are role-playing?

As for following a set pricing guide -

Not selling if they won't pay, and I mean no offense when I say this AR7, is one of the most horrible ideas I have heard in a while. I think one of the greatest things of selling ANYTHING is the amount of interaction that goes into it. I like it when they haggle, or offer other things. I have been known to make an item for someone virtually for free if they show the effort to come with me and learn how I made it and role-play well. Mind you, it was not something particularly nice, or hard to come by, but it was something they could not have made themselves. Something they would have to buy. The pricing guide is out of date, it was meant as a loose guideline, and it offers only a shelf price. If we all HAVE to abide by any such guide, then I hope crafting is removed all together, and things are just on NPC vendors, because it may aswell be that way if we cannot haggle, barter, or work for our items.

As for player merchants doing something about it -

YES! This is what should be done. Talk to them, threaten them, make good RP out of it. Discredit them, call them a filthy Corathite that curses all their equipment. Refuse to help them, refuse to associate with them, try and undercut their deals. Don't just come whine about it. Maybe there is a reason they sold that low. Maybe they don't know the price. Maybe they ARE trying to run you out of business. Deal with it.

As for turning out 50 million items and selling them dirt cheap -

Yeah, here is a problem. It's one of the reasons I like the cooking tradeskill. No one cooks, so we can charge what we want for drinks, pies, and other more or less useless in a mechanical sense, but lovely for RP purposes. Set your price and people will pay it, especially if they are in a hurry.



Anyway ... that's my rant.

[Dark Jester]

Just to chime in with something sortof related:

Part of the problem that leads to 'Market Crashes' and such is that there arent a lot of ways currently to remove gold from circulation.

Houses are a good way to take large chunks out at a time, but with the limited number available, the gold is soon replaced. Decorations for said houses work the same way.

What needs to be implemented are recurring ways for gold to be taken out of the market, to make the remaining gold have more value.

If I have 500,000 in the bank and I'm trying to sell an item for 2,000 I am not going to care as much about huge profits. I might let that item go at near cost just to move inventory.

However, if there were things in place to regularly remove gold from the market, that 500,000 could dwindle very fast, making me refuse to sell at anything lower than 2,000 and perhaps require even more.

When you can do a 'red light run' and come out with 500+ gold just from goblin corpses, the value of gold doesnt seem very great.

As far as suggestions for removing Gold from the market, here are a couple:

Add a Potion Vendor. Make his prices for the potions a lot higher than normal so player alchemists can easily continue to sell for the 'current market value', but if you need some potions and can't find an alchemist, you can dump your gold into disposable items. I think a lot of people would use this.

Same goes for a lot of other disposable trade skill items. Arrows, scrolls, oils, baked goods, alcohols. Offer them on merchants, but jack the prices up alot higher than what players sell the items for. This will get those player merchants out hawking their wares more to make sure people know they are an alternative to the Vendors. And will have people constantly voluntarily removing their gold from circulation.

Sell some more of the ingredients for tradeskills on merchants. Sure, we can buy bottles and flasks. But at 1 gold each, thats not making any kind of dent on the market. Offer essences for alchemy. Arrowheads, juice extracts, bow strings, paper, etc. Again, jack the prices up so people really have to want them to buy them from a vendor instead of a player or getting them themselves.

The point of all this being, the people with boatloads of money in the bank are the people more likely to just buy what they need from a vendor.

I understand this is a Low Magic world, which is a good thing. But if the prices are super high, it will still have the same limiting effect as having to wait to find a player merchant, and have the added bonus of removing gold from the economy, thereby making gold as valuable as it should be. If someone wants to go dump 300K on alchemy supplies from a vendor, let them. Thats 300,000 gold that was just taken out of circulation.

It works the same way in real life. With enough money, you can pay anyone to teach you how to do almost anything.

Just some thoughts.

-Jester

[Doc-Holiday]

Or

make gold drops far less often

create inflation

unleash baby rust monsters that eat gold coins

institute a luxury tax

wait... don't do that... I hate taxes


my serious recommendation is to make gold drops less frequent and far less common

1 or 2 gold from a goblin is more like it... and even then only a few goblins should drop

after all.. bunnies work hard just to keep up with them

[LoganGrimnar]

taxes would be a good idea,your taxed by what you have now... but how was it abck then. no way a king wouldent be taxing his people. have taxes on homes, every month you need to pay such and such amount depending on the size of the home... make 3 room homes that have low taxes, or make the huge 2 story mansions have higher taxes. that will keep people away from houses more, and it will remove money. Monthly taxes or your house is taken from you and resold, sounds good to me.