Guilds vs free trade?

[Fetdaniel]

Yea, but as I statet, there should be a benefit for being (in) a guild. otherwise people would ask themslves:"Why should I?" I dont't really have thought about it yet, I admit.

Well true this is what makes a guild even exist in the first place, I agree with you. So any miners guild or farmers guild would make better deals for the said group. A farmers guild, as the example is more close to home in my case, would perhaps want more bars per linen, food or anything the guild finds could be changed. The guild must also be realistic, but that is dealt with by the market, so all gain, no pain. =)

[Potjeh]

Well that is true, and in essense guilds are not restricting free trade, but wouldn't transparency increase if we had guilds that wrote trade standards for a groups interests or a sense of fair trade instead of arbitrarly decided ratios

These "arbitrary" prices *are* the fair prices, because they reward labour proportionately to it's usefulness to the whole economy. Any prices set by guilds would be the really arbitrary ones, because they wouldn't be determined by the market mechanisms and thus wouldn't be nearly dynamical enough to exert pressure on producers to move towards production lines where labour is deficient.

[Fetdaniel]

Well that is true, and in essense guilds are not restricting free trade, but wouldn't transparency increase if we had guilds that wrote trade standards for a groups interests or a sense of fair trade instead of arbitrarly decided ratios

These "arbitrary" prices *are* the fair prices, because they reward labour proportionately to it's usefulness to the whole economy. Any prices set by guilds would be the really arbitrary ones, because they wouldn't be determined by the market mechanisms and thus wouldn't be nearly dynamical enough to exert pressure on producers to move towards production lines where labour is deficient.

Since when was guilds excluded from market mechanisms? I find that any entity in a market that doesn't force others to do anything, is a part of natural market mechanisms. Otherwise you would also say that food retailers are excluded from the market mechanisms too? Since they set the price for milk and doesn't haggle with you? This is simply a matter of organisation and thus a improved channel for communication.

Well arbitraryness (if that is a word) is subjective as is fairness, so I can't say that you are wrong, but I can disagree. Since now the prices seem to be decided by the "haves" and followed by the "don't haves" and as a consequence its still politics/power. I want to change that and essentially make each profession free from its individuals power, and therefore putting market where politics once ruled prices.

"These "arbitrary" prices *are* the fair prices, because they reward labour proportionately to it's usefulness to the whole economy." The reward of labour is beeing able to trade and get something you want. Its usefulness is a just a another word for the value the demanding individuals of the economy gives it. And this giving of value and sense of reward is not something that is best written in an excell graph sheet as some kind of abstract value here, since the population is much more limited, its best understood as an general idea in the community that very few tries test and change, which gives a stale economy of oligarks where trade doesn't reward people as the effort exceeds rewards. Chakravanti points this out in the aspect that if people need alts and three days before they can utilize a trade, it becomes to much fuss.
And if its to much fuss to get what you want, you try other ways of getting what you want. And this is bad for the market, the more trade is done, the better the market performs. And security is not only not being stabbed in the back, its also about sharing a common idea that has been commonly agreed upon.

[firemage]

I agree with Potjeh, and think that communism is a scourge on the world that should be nuked from orbit, since its the only way to really ever be sure.

I wouldn't go so far, but I agree that communism like it existed is overall was a bad idea.
Basically it was a state run monopoly in everything afaik (I have no first hand experience), with all the problems of concentration of power and problems with efficiency. I mean come on: waiting 10 years and more for a car with a plastic body?


I like Adam Smiths theory, that in perfect markets everyone gets what he needs at prices fairest for everyone. The problem is, that we have no perfect markets in reality.
It begins with oligopolies instead of polypolies and ends with complete knowledge of the quality of the products. If any of the many factors is missing, we have no perfect market anymore and we lose the benefit of fair prices for everyone.
And from there it only goes downhill.

Looking from that perspective it was maybe not a good idea to implement travel weariness, since it sets people far from RoB at a disadvantage in trading. One of the factors is, that there is no preferation of where and with whom one wants to trade. Another problematic point was the limitation of the visibilty of item qualities. Luckily that one was reverted.

All in all H&H is as good a simulation of a perfect as one might hope to get.

[Phazorx]

Personally, at the stage where i am now, i can not complain about how trade is now or how trade was few updates ago (before vending stands).
As an independent mid level farmer with access to needed resources and possession of tools - my main trading venue is bulk deals of food for something fancy i want (like jewelry or better tools). Free market based on barter dictates that each trade is personal and there is no real set value, exchange rates are based on availability of excess to trade with and need for desired goods with some personal reputation flavored in. Especially with quality aspect in mind it is very hard to evaluate anything aside of personal view at given barter deal. And to me, if you think price is right, the deal is fine. Chances are all trades of that kind will have exchange rates on one or the other side of average "market value" but such is life.

Problems which i see now are volume based... Generally, the demand is greater than supply which is due to several aspects, couple of which are distance are storage. Distance implies need for traveling to do the trade, even if it is possible to port-travel to rob and back to hearth/village or use crossroads, it consumes not only time but also resources to control weariness level. Storage - accumulating great amounts of goods requires space and managing these amounts is tiresome, also gradual "upgrade" of quality influencing skills and materials quickly renders stock outdated; That makes "waiting for a good deal" trading pointless. All that together with others things defines profitable trades as only these that are barter done in bulk on person-to-person level. Trading with middle man (which is i guess here merchant guilds would fall into) makes it very troublesome for that middle man to deal with stocks and setting up trades, vending stalls come to help, but more on them later.
Second paramount volume issues is lack of traders since many villages or high level players are self sufficient. Even a team of 2 players with access to few mines can get by just fine without ever going to RoB and on top of that there is lack of traders simply due to lack of players. Until some critical mass of trade volume per unit of time is reached and there is always a deal for what yo have turning in what you want possible - there will be great fluctuations of "prices".

Second issue is sort of relevant to first - vending stands are not working. They are not working for traders because instead of setting up trades that are for sure and as a result of which you get what you want, one needs to periodically check/update stock at their stands just to get coins, which then need to be converted into what you want, and having stands where you are is often pointless since no one else is there, while having them where everyone else is (such as RoB) also implies frequent travel, which also can be completely pointless (no one bought anything, nothing to restock). They are not working for buyers either because, while for single item purchases (which i where term vending comes from) they are great, these who want these items (newbie players) do not possess what is to give in return (coins).

To be a bit on constructive side - I'd like to suggest some "magic" based mailing system for limited amount of items which would make remote trading possible for low volume trades, while at same time providing some viking-e-Bay facility similar to WOW auction for larger volume trades that need to happen in person (yes, out of character, know). First will be useful for mailing items to new players, free or based on credit whichever trader will consider reasonable, and later will help to arrange trades even to these players that are not online at same time, while game gains enough playerbase. These would reinforce free-market system, and perhaps give more power to "village liaisons" if these come to play ever.

[jorb]

I agree with Potjeh, and think that communism is a scourge on the world that should be nuked from orbit, since its the only way to really ever be sure.

Some people likes to look at the economic solution like market/planned economy as seperate to any ideas about equality and fraternity. Which i must add is more relevant in this post modern world, but i digress..

Although these facts are well known, millions today enthusiastically support policies that aim at the substitution of planning by an authority for autonomous planning by each individual. They are longing for slavery. Of course, the champions of totalitarianism protest that what they want to abolish is "only economic freedom" and that all "other freedoms" will remain untouched. But freedom is indivisible. The distinction between an economic sphere of human life and activity and a noneconomic sphere is the worst of their fallacies. If an omnipotent authority has the power to assign to every individual the tasks he has to perform, nothing that can be called freedom and autonomy is left to him. He has only the choice between strict obedience and death by starvation.

Theory and History, p. 376-77

Postmodernism is one of the most demoralizing strains of Marxism that has ever come to plague the western world. Where Europe previously upheld the values of science, reason, objective and eternal truths, individualism, pride, honor and basic human dignity, it now upholds nothing save the gray, dull dissolution into nothing that, under the false flag of "critique of reason" -- a blatant logical fallacy of a stolen concept, underpinned by floating abstractions, thrown in the face of every human being with an active mind -- attempts to subvert and destroy all objective standards in the fields of science, ethics, economics and politics, replacing them with a return to primitive tribalism, championed by the slave moralities of environmentalism, radical feminism, socialism and multiculturalism. Telling the kids that Händel's Messiah is comparable in scope, dignity and importance with the primitive cave drawings of Durkadurkastan, that God kills a seal every time you do not recycle, that the man who builds skyscrapers is "equal" to the street corner drug addict, and that the sky is going to fall down on their heads unless they otherwise prostrate themselves on the profane altars of angry earth goddesses, or politburos, rather.

"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities."

There is a story often told and retold, of how German, French and British soldiers in the trenches of WWI, on Christmas Eve of the first year of the war, could overhear each other -- across the dead no man's land of craters, corpses and barbed wire -- singing Christmas carols. "Silent Night", or "Stille Nacht" in German. Recognizing the basic humanity of the men on the other side, the soldiers started singing louder, across the blasted wasteland and the darkness -- as I picture it covered by the light frosting of a first snow -- chiming in with the songs of the other, some knowing French, some British, some German. The story goes on to tell how they eventually came out of the trenches, and met in the wasteland between them, embracing, laughing, exchanging gifts and singing as among brothers. They knew implicitly at that point that they were of one kind. That they shared a common heritage, and that the war between them was a brother's war. Mao would later refer to WWI as "The European Civil War", without which, he argued, China would have been dismembered by the Empires of Europe.

On that night, in some god forsaken shit-town in France, the tidal wave that was European civilization hit its high-water mark, and the wave broke. Then came Versailles, the greatest betrayal of an idea ever committed. The years after have been nothing but a slow petering out into confusion and nothingness. The Cold war? The Prussia of Fredrick The Great, or the Britain of Queen Victoria, or the Russia of the Romanovs, would never have made deals with the enemies of civilization, save through gun-boat diplomacy. If you look closely, you can still see the marks on the levee where the wave broke:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cWz9MrHskk (Take it to eleven.)

I give very little for postmodernism, because I find it fundamentally unaesthetic to see human beings crawl, when they were so obviously meant to walk, and I hope I'm alive when the whole rotten tower of babel comes crashing down.

Dog carcass in the alley this morning...

[theTrav]

There seems to be a lot of "wordiness" in these posts that make me assume that there will be little to no ACTUAL EFFORT put towards making any of this happen.

Here's my ten cents.


1 - War torn paranoia is not anti-guild, it's pro guild. People don't want to be known as wealthy, so by trading via an established faction they can maximize their anonymity.

2 - All you need to do is get a few people together to get round-the-clock online coverage, pool your resources and start making bulk trades.
Have some scouts wander around IN GAME and talk to people WHILE THEY ARE PLAYING and you will find a lot more buyers and sellers than you could find on IRC.
Don't publish those buyers and sellers, just buy from them and sell to them and use your access to that market as a competitive advantage. If you can trade more volume, you can crowd others out of the market by lowering your margins.

3 - Be aware that this will take TONS of effort, and I don't just mean words on a forum or IRC, I mean ground pounding, book working, door knocking AND words on a forum/irc.

I put the wordy bit last deliberately, because by coming to the forum with NOTHING established in your own name, you set yourself up to be shouted down as a no-body and are likely to damage your own reputation/market position before you've even established one.

[theTrav]

Postmodernism is one of the most demoralizing strains of Marxism that has ever come to plague the western world.

Well that's just like... you're opinion... maaaaan...

Telling the kids that Händel's Messiah is comparable in scope, dignity and importance with the primitive cave drawings of Durkadurkastan, that God kills a seal every time you do not recycle, that the man who builds skyscrapers is "equal" to the street corner drug addict, and that the sky is going to fall down on their heads unless they otherwise prostrate themselves on the profane altars of angry earth goddesses, or politburos, rather.

So you're a racist bigot then! You just don't understand maaaan, those durka's maaan they're like, in touch with their environment yeah? Did you see any global warming while they were in power? huh? did you? I don't think so maaaan. We could learn a lot from these cultures.



Trolling is fun ^_^

[Potjeh]

Did you just quote Ayn Rand? That's it, it's over between us

And now, I'd like to say that stands are working, but people just aren't using them enough.

They are not working for traders because instead of setting up trades that are for sure and as a result of which you get what you want, one needs to periodically check/update stock at their stands just to get coins, which then need to be converted into what you want

It may not be as nice as directly converting what you have into what you want, but it still beats nothing. Often, you don't have anything that the guy you want to trade with wants. Coins as universally accepted goods are there to bridge the gap, not to replace barter completely.

and having stands where you are is often pointless since no one else is there, while having them where everyone else is (such as RoB) also implies frequent travel, which also can be completely pointless (no one bought anything, nothing to restock).

Not really. You just need an alt hearth at your stall for checking the state of your store. As an added bonus, it lights up the place, which somewhat improves business at night. And you want an alt claim on your stalls anyway.

They are not working for buyers either because, while for single item purchases (which i where term vending comes from) they are great, these who want these items (newbie players) do not possess what is to give in return (coins).

The buyers just need to build their own stands. If they have anything that other people need, they can get coins for it. There's enough customers for them, trust me. I personally buy at stalls roughly 80% of the food I eat.

[Fetdaniel]

Rant

Ok I must admit i have only read halfway trough, and I must say I need more time to answer this in a good and respectable way.