Ola!
There's a few fundamental parts of any economy which you may have forgotten. The main one being:
A currency's value is completely make-believe.
If you're the
too long; didn't read type, then I suggest you scroll right down to my conclusion.
Why is the US dollar worth more than the Australian dollar? Because people believe that it is. If everyone suddenly thought the Australian dollar was worth more, suddenly the US Dollar plunges.
Let's talk AusCraft hypotheticals!
If Player A believes that the (hopefully) hard work they put it to find and mine a diamond is worth $100, then the perceived value of the AC$ to that player is $1 = 0.01 Diamonds
Player B sees Player A's shop and decides to sell his own diamonds, but will undercut him for the sake of competition. He charges $75 instead.
Now, to Player A, his value of AC$ might not change. But Player B has just set his at a value of $1 = 0.013 Diamonds.
This might not seem like much of a difference at all, but the other players just LOVE their new cheap(er) diamonds. New shop owners enter the scene and now the average price is just $50 for a diamond.
Now the rate is $1 = 0.02 Diamonds. Still a pretty small number increase, but take a look at the bigger picture. Most players are now aware of the cheap diamonds. Most believe that $50 is a reasonable price for them.
The price of a stack of diamonds has gone from $6,400 to $3,200.
A chest shop full, 1,728 diamonds, as gone from $172,800 to just $86,400.
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The problem with trying to prevent things like this killing the economy is that a perfect economy requires the full co-operation of everybody within it. Without cheap sellers AND expensive sellers, everything is either too cheap to be worth the effort or too expensive for anyone to buy. To take one last trip back to my hypotheticals above, if Player A stayed at $100 and Player B stayed at $75 and both had fairly decent sales, the rough value should sit somewhere about $87.50 for a diamond, approximately $1 = 0.011 Diamonds.
The issue?
You can't control the people in the economy, unless they're all communists or somethin and they'd agree to it. Much like Aria said above, and I'll try not to repeat what they wrote, trying to price fix as you suggested will not only be a pain for the
already overworked slaves staff, but will force players to either conform to prices that they don't want to work for or that people won't pay for. You may as well remove player shops and expand the server shop.
The solution?
Start fixing it yourself. In the same way that a perfect economy requires everyone to co-operate, a terrible one also requires everyone to keep it that way. Charge what YOU believe your items are worth, and what you want to be paid for your effort. People will support your shop if you give them a reason to.
For some quick shop tips:
- SELL SOMETHING YOU ENJOY GATHERING/MAKING. Otherwise you'll dread restocking and won't have much motivation to keep going.
- Talk to other shop owners, such as Faycrina and I (as you have) and work out ways you can co-operate.
- Advertise. Try to come up with something interesting and memorable, rather than just posting /warp <name> is restocked every 5 minutes (unless you were asked about stock).
- Put in the time and effort to properly plan out a design for your shop. A good looking shop is memorable and is just as good as another form of advertising.
- BE THERE in your shop and interact with your potential and current customers. Again, giving them a memorable experience is your main objective.
- Enjoy a bit of healthy competition. Go in as a player in the world of business, don't cheat, hack threaten and blackmail your way to the top. You might even offer to help supply them if they run out of stock and take a cut yourself! (see #2)
- Be open to paying players to gather / make the items you sell too if you can't keep up with demand. Keeping the money flowing around the economy keeps your shop busy!
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One thing I notice from a lot of players on the server is that they don't realise that
Supply and Demand are MAJOR factors in pricing. /warp sand has effectively made sand worthless because it's infinite. However, the server shop also infinitely buys it for $0.50 each, so the result is that nobody
with half a brain who didn't want to just get rid of it would sell sand for anything less than $0.50.
Wood, wheat, pumpkins, melons, beetroots, sugarcane etc. are infinite resources if looked after properly, so their value will be negatively impacted. The ease of access to these through the various farm warps only serves to exponentially increase the impact. The impact of this also extends to the various items that they are used for, such as charcoal, sugar, planks, etc.
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To conclude this incredibly long post (that if you're still reading I want to thank you :P), I too believe that the economy is a
little dead at the moment, but it's important to remember
it's not broken. It's functioning just as any other economy would. Price fixing is most definitely not the solution and is illegal in most real world countries for the damage that it can cause. I would also argue that server-side influences like another /warp sand or expanding the server shop would only cause even more damage to the economy, unless it was an appropriately priced item that could not be legitimately found within the server map.
Remember, the value of money is what you make it, so do your part in fixing it.
Cheers,
Vlo