Gods Walk The Earth: Playtesting Trade

[Fools]

Yes, linen and terrible food will drive a more robust economy. I'm only arguing that there is a clear (though perhaps, unintentional) ideology in design (not trade) that ignores reciprocity in less and more advanced players. I'm not saying this is all true all the time and it will come into your house at night and touch your bits and pieces, but I am saying that there is an underlying structure in the economy that is inherently unspecialized, and uni-directional.

That's a problem with arguing structure and anecdotes. You're beyond a diffrent rhetorical style, you're arguing a different thing entirely; you're arguing that something happened or is happening, and I won't disagree. People are selling shit. I'm speculating about how the modes of production effect the market and whether it will perpetuate itself to healthier and healthier places, and you're saying "but people are selling things NOW." What am I supposed to do with that?

[Chakravanti]

Market speculation is the realm of profitability for the budding merch. It should change, and it shouldn't stop changing. IF it does reach the gridlocked stability you speak of, you have fuckers standing in front of falador bank macroing to buy and sell the same item for +/-100k profit a turnover. That, imho, is a grindfest.

[Fools]

Hmm, I think you're still misunderstanding me. When I speak of a market, I mean the ambiguous places where people exchange goods and services directly. I'm speculating on people's motivations to produce and assign value along a timeline where everyone progresses to the same point. Without specialization and artisanry, the value of goods and motivation for selling will be limited by access to resources and the ease of production in end-game playing styles. I imagine that as fast-travel comes into its own, the market will change for an increase in trade (in a generalized way), but will still be limited as I've described before. Anyhow, in a population of this size, there is a danger in largely ignoring different stages of play in the market and designing modes of production without specialization or mutually beneficial exchanges.

[Chakravanti]

No, i understand you perfectly and I'm saying whaty you want is a bad thing. Gridlocked prices. Moreover, most market instability is due to things still being a fresh map as time goes by and more silk is produced the demand for it will recede a bit. More products will increase this demand. You dislike the QL system but tbh without it there is no trade. No reason to congregate into communities. You are focused on the self-imposed limitations of newbies who don't know shit about the game yet. Once you learn what to make, who to trade with for HQ resources it is not a matter of 'catching up' there is a lot you can do that is independent of the QL system while you wait for your trees to grow.

[Fools]

Yeah, I think you missed everything.

[theTrav]

I think you're being trolled Chak.

He started with a whine about how the reality right now is that it's crap to trade if you don't own a mine.

You responded with how:
a) There is high demand for non metal resources
b) Access to the brodgar mine is available to all brodgarans (open door immigration)

He responded with some psycho babble about how he's not talking about the reality right not, but rather about some abstract concept of trade and some potential future.


I agree with the criticism that Jorb didn't really test the market very well because:
a) He magicked himself up a rare resource instead of joining a community that already had one and using that
b) He fed himself lembas so didn't really have to worry about sustaining himself with food while he produced his rare resource (easy to get rich quick if you have no overheads)


Having said that though, I've participated in the market place and watched other people participate, and I think it's pretty reasonable the way it works right now. I can't see it getting worse via the status quo, but given that the dev's change things pretty massively fairly frequently, trying to predict the future of the market seems a bit pointless.

[jorb]

a) He magicked himself up a rare resource instead of joining a community that already had one and using that

BS and vicious lies. I went out into Mordor, all by myself, and found a mine. It took me *gasp* a few hours. I've since found two more. Using rustroot. Legitimately. Without looking at the, nonexistent, pregenerated maps. Did you not read my post? Since the new maps I can't even spawn mines with Jorb.

b) He fed himself lembas so didn't really have to worry about sustaining himself with food while he produced his rare resource (easy to get rich quick if you have no overheads)

... I just don't know how to respond to that kind of stupid. Eating food makes your stats go up, consequently you want to eat as much food as possible. Eating Lembas to stave off hunger is possibly the most utterly inane use of Lembas I could think of. Throwing it in the water would actually be better, since you'd still be hungry, which is fundamentally a good thing. I fed myself lembas on occasion, before the band aids were fixed, to heal HHP damage, because band aids and leeches were completely unusable at my level. I gained some leveling speed, but not more than a player with a few alts could have done.

[Fools]

This is no attempt at trolling. I'm just saying that...

1. There was faulty reasoning in assessing the trade system and market
2. That as all economic systems are dependent on scarcity to derive value, H&H's system is also dependent on the geographic placement of resources as the sole origin of scarcity (everything not geographically based is easily manipulated and reproducible).
3. On a long enough timeline access may become problematic
4. Those with the greatest amount of direct access are the least likely to need something that they are incapable of producing (Yes, trade exists in this fashion, but what are the motivations and are they structural or psychological? Who mines metal and makes silk thread who is simultaneously incapable of making food, linen, and the basic necessities that are most likely to be offered?)
5. Therefore, it would be a stabilizing condition to allow specialization within the skill/quality system to create diverse skill paths in mid and late game strategies.

Things I'm not saying:

1. There is no trade between advanced and less advanced players
2. Whatever weird stock-market metaphor Chakravanti was talking about
3. "Gridlocked prices"
4. We should coddle our newbies
5. Everything is horrible

[warrri]

Fact is, you ran out into mordor and found a mine, that is what only 1% of the population is able to do, and if it were more all mines would be taken in a week.

[warrri]

b) He fed himself lembas so didn't really have to worry about sustaining himself with food while he produced his rare resource (easy to get rich quick if you have no overheads)

... I just don't know how to respond to that kind of stupid. Eating food makes your stats go up, consequently you want to eat as much food as possible. Eating Lembas to stave off hunger is possibly the most utterly inane use of Lembas I could think of. Throwing it in the water would actually be better, since you'd still be hungry, which is fundamentally a good thing. I fed myself lembas on occasion, before the band aids were fixed, to heal HHP damage, because band aids and leeches were completely unusable at my level. I gained some leveling speed, but not more than a player with a few alts could have done.

If i want to push stats i plow and drink, ill need some food for it though. If i want to search i mine i have to rely on my great hp amount and eat raw flesh, since i cant carry as much food as i want with me. And if i roasted it before, id had 500strength by now, while the other stats wouldve been in the 50's.