Welcome to the new AusCraft website!
IP Copied!
Click to Copy IP
play.auscraft.net

Fixed Prices

Hello!

I was thinking about this earlier today while creating my own shop, and after hearing some complaints about the way the economy is on the server.

Due to undercutting, scarcity, etc, prices on items are fluctuating, and sometimes getting completely out of reach for most players on the server based on viable methods of income they have.

I think it would greatly benefit all of us if every item on the server had a set price based on the amount of money you can make doing other things, how easy it is to get the item, and how scarce the item is if there is a limited quantity on the map.

Competition is still important though - and it can still be done! Ease of access and variety would be key in this system, as well as a public list of shops on the forum (or just server announcement to use /warp list -n shop).

What do y'all think?
 

GlacyrX

GlacyrX
GlacyrX
MEMBER
Hi there. I had a read of your suggestion. To put this quite politely, I understood everything you said except for the post.

My understanding of what you have said is that you want to mandate prices for the same goods across all shops. As a hypothetical example, you are suggesting that all diamonds (including at admin shop) should be sold at $100, all iron ingots be sold at $7.50, all pumpkins be sold at $1 and ask staff to enforce these prices across the whole map.

You follow this suggestion with the assertion that competition is important.

??? You have encouraged zero competition by enforcing a common price for each item. Why would I have any incentive to choose one shop over another if I know that all people sell at the same price for the same good/service? It's completely non-competitive. The moment someone says "Oh, please buy from me, I can throw in an extra ___" then you get competition from several sellers, trying to market their product to a prospective buyer. But now you have a player who has broken a mandated cost for that item (they've offered more for the same amount of money), and presumably you are expecting staff to action a consequence for that player (because otherwise it is meaningless to mandate something and not enforce that rule).

If you have a set price for an item, why does a list of shops matter significantly any more? I literally look at the list and go "eeny, meeny, miny, moe" and buy from the shop I land my finger on. That is not competition.

Since you have brought up the topic of scarcity, if the cost of diamonds get mandated across the map, then every purchase of diamonds from player shops keeps the number of diamonds in the server constant. However, purchases from admin shop will create new diamonds out of nowhere, injecting more diamonds into the server and reducing money available in the economy. You will end up increasing diamond supply (which reduces their value and cost) whilst removing players' future ability to make purchases, exacerbating the "items completely out of reach for most players on the server based on viable methods of income" problem you have indicated.

Sorry, but this is not a coherent suggestion or response that you have provided. Either choose a mandated cost for goods and accept that there will be zero competition henceforth, or suggest another way to moderate server competition.
 
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.

-------------------------------------------------------------

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:
  1. SELL SOMETHING YOU ENJOY GATHERING/MAKING. Otherwise you'll dread restocking and won't have much motivation to keep going.
  2. Talk to other shop owners, such as Faycrina and I (as you have) and work out ways you can co-operate.
  3. 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).
  4. 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.
  5. BE THERE in your shop and interact with your potential and current customers. Again, giving them a memorable experience is your main objective.
  6. 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)
  7. 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!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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
 
Hi Aria, thanks for your reply. There's no need to be so rude and condescending over a video game. Bigger things in the world to get worked up about, but I have come to expect this from people on Minecraft so whatever.

I agree with Vlo's point about the server shop and /warp sand screwing things up just a little- I think a better solution to the problem I presented would be making prices there the average of what is offered at shops around the server rather than significantly higher than what is available. It will also help people price their merchandise more effectively.
 
Hi Aria, thanks for your reply. There's no need to be so rude and condescending over a video game. Bigger things in the world to get worked up about, but I have come to expect this from people on Minecraft so whatever.

I agree with Vlo's point about the server shop and /warp sand screwing things up just a little- I think a better solution to the problem I presented would be making prices there the average of what is offered at shops around the server rather than significantly higher than what is available. It will also help people price their merchandise more effectively.

Hey, Mayor!

I don't think Aria's being rude or condescending, it's just Aria's way of expression. Try to think of it more like triple-distilled logic rather than a personal assault :smile: .

I also agree that /warp sand and the like basically make that item worthless for trade, BUT it makes them an easy cash cow via admin shop... I wonder if there's way to tell the /warp sand apart from the naturally mined sand, and make only one saleable? (i know you get no xp from /warp sand mining, but it's probably a bit of a stretch to see if the blocks have a separate ID). Anyway, I digress...

The economy's certainly not balanced for a number of items just now, but I personally believe that it's "growing pains" more than a fundamental failure of the entire system. If people are unreasonably undercutting others, in time they'll probably find that it's not worth their effort to sell at such a loss, and either move on, or increase prices to a more realistic, balanced figure.

The good news is that unlike the real world, we can out-wait the under-cutter without sacrificing our actual livelihood and going out of business!

Smurf.