Slavery on Freedom?

[mrcrowz 9]

That's an offer. People are free to ignore or accept that offer as they please.

This. You guys have to remember that the player does not have to accept the offer. I can go and sell 25ql compasses at FM for 2s each, but that doesn't mean i'm ripping people off, it means i'm overpriced and probably not going to get any takers.

Othob and Scribbles said everything else I had to say.

You may get no veteran customers, but a fool/newbie who actually has 2s will buy one since he has no idea of market prices and probably wouldn't have the patience to browse.

I agree, buying planks from newbies at 1i each is a shameless exploitation, free market or not. Its like throwing someone into a foreign land where he has no idea of the exchange rate then handing him a shovel to work at daylight robbery rates. Granted, there will be newbies who wanna make a quick buck and sell planks low, but the buyer should always inform green labourers of the prevailing rates before buying. Newbies increase supply and drive down prices, but should not NOT be treated like children with candy.

Runescape has a market, why not use that idea  :

I've always liked Runescape's Grand Exchange. It gave both the buyer and seller the price they're willing to pay or accept, and individuals can never manipulate the market for their own gain.

Ah, perfect information...

[sirex 0]

Surely saying "this man is paying 1i thats outragious ! they're worth at least 10i when i buy them!"  is pointless, and also: you ain't buying them, thats why the guy accepted the 1i offer. They're worth what someone is offering. If noone in the area is offering anything, currently they're worth 0i.

If the froob player had an easy way to see the prices in a larger area, they'd know where to work.

... Which is why i said a market like EvE where you can see prices over a wider area, congregate sellers into a set of locations (space stations, or in wurm it'd be shared merchants) would work wonders for wurm's currently rubbish economy.

Let people put their products directly head to head on the same merchant and let the market do its job.

Then you'll get a proper economy. People playing the market prices, moving goods from one area to anouther for the price difference, and buying lower products to skew the prices in their favour, with prices higher in more dangerous areas (on wild server)... etc etc.... also just like EvE.

[EliasTheCrimson 348]

Allowing prices to fall through the floor thanks to globalization doesn't equate a "better" economy. Nor is the economy "rubbish" just because prices of items/services differ between regions of the world.

[Scion Breshnev 0]

How can it be globalised when a few hundred people live on a island scattered with backward rural villages.

[sirex 0]

... and the wurm economy *is* rubbish. Given that the game forces every player to have the ability to create and thereby sell, the amount of selling / market activity going on isn't great. You have 2-3 bigger merchant areas with tons of sellers all displaying a random array of tat. That's not a market, it's a car boot sale.

Also, prices will only fall if they need to fall, an hours work should still be an hours work. This assumes the game has the time needed to create items balenced correctly, but hiding an imbalence with a poor ability to price check and trade isn't a solution.

Differing prices in diffrent regions is good if it's due to accessability, supply / demand, or risk to the supply (i.e a war zone). Differing prices because noone knows the going rate isn't so good.

[Othob Rithol 700]

Given that the game forces every player to have the ability to create and thereby sell,

Not sure what the heck that means, but I have yet to have Wurm force me to do anything.

EVE = futuristic interstellar trade with formal exchanges

Wurm = small medieval island

Want to know the going rate of anything that is actually traded? It's called Market Research. (2 links).

What is it you want valued?

[sirex 0]

Not sure what the heck that means, but I have yet to have Wurm force me to do anything.

Enjoying doing something doesn't mean you weren't forced to do it. Perhaps you can trade for every single item you need, but who does that ? It's way too easy to make nearly anything you need that someone could have specialised in providing if the game was geared that way better, particularly at sub 50ql levels.

And market research apparently isn't accessible to players, if it was there wouldn't be a debate in this thread on the going rate of a plank. In most games a large portion of the player base don't read the forums, I'd be surprised if wurm is any different. Given that froobs are accepting 1i for planks in the face of a thread titled "slavery on freedom", I'd doubt it.

[EliasTheCrimson 348]

"Market research" is available at the fingertips of every player at all times; it's called Kchat. In addition, there's the forum. A simple inquery or a tiny bit of reading effort is required to get a good idea of the market state. If you can't muster the small effort to use the means provided you've got little right to complain.

[sirex 0]

Personally I'm not complaining, I'm just saying that's why the market and trade is so bad.

As an example I've only ever bought 1 item from another player, a cog last week. In the time since then my ship skills have gone from just-about sailboat levels to corbita levels with not a lot of effort, in another week I'd be able to build them myself, so I'm not in the market for buying ships any more. That cant be good for trade.

Rolf's going to have to do a lot of work to fix these issues if the game is to grow

[Ols 306]

I could build a ship if I wanted to, but I don't. It's boring and it takes time. I buy them instead. When people divide roles in an economy, they don't always do it because they can't do the other ones, but because it's more efficient to have specialisation. The economy will keep functioning fine as long as people find where there is demand and what the typical prices are.