How to prevent novices from buying massive comms

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Comments

  • EnyalidaEnyalida Nasty Woman, Sockpuppeteer to the Gods
    @Lavinyaunfortunately, that method of dealing with it cannot be done at an org level unless you price policy everyone but your org out. No amount of 'just paying attention' will create a shoplog where one doesn't exist, unless you're suggesting that trade ministries organize  stakeouts in commshops. 

  • Enyalida said:
    @Lavinyaunfortunately, that method of dealing with it cannot be done at an org level unless you price policy everyone but your org out. No amount of 'just paying attention' will create a shoplog where one doesn't exist, unless you're suggesting that trade ministries organize  stakeouts in commshops. 
    That won't work either, actually. You can't make a price policy against rogues! It is far better to just set up a good discount for your org and set the "base" price for everyone else, even if you consider the discount to be the true price. If you want your allied orgs to be closer to it, then you can just set up discounts similar to your org's.
  • Lavinya said:
    I disagree. I'm not saying it's totally ethical, but I think you're making a bigger deal out of it than what it really is. I own a shop. There was situations were people would buy all my stock, then sell it at a higher price from their stores. I thought it SUCKED big time. I wanted novices etc to be able to afford basic goods without paying a fortune for them, but I definitely didn't suddenly think the admin should start coding around it. Instead, I instigated an IC tradeban against the people that were using these practices, banned said people from my shop (and encouraged shop owners to do the same) and found the instances of it were drastically reduced.

    And that's the crux of my point. Whether you like it or not/ think it's jackassery or not, it's something that is easily fixed IN GAME by having trade ministers that actively pay attention to their ministry! It doesn't need a big admin boot to the face or coded limits that will ultimately annoy a lot more people.
    Neither am I asking for any coded limits, if you re-read my posts. I was simply voicing my disagreement that the idea of lusternia's system should be seen as a kind of market with economic forces driving buying and selling. Using this kind of mentality to justify the kind of abuse that's being discussed in this thread is just going to lead to a system meant for helping tradespeople used against them. Here's what Eventru said:
    Eventru said:
    I don't think there's anything wrong with buying up massive amounts of commodities. If you put them for sale, you're really welcoming anyone to but them. If someone's buying you out and selling them to another org, that's the breaks of an economic system. If you're selling them for less than a village is buying, whose fault is that? What's actually wrong with that?
    Here's what you said:
    Lavinya said:
    Time to make your trade ministers do their research. You think real business don't keep a close eye on what costs their competitors are working with?

    ...

    It's called espionage? I think it's actually a very smart tactic. If you don't want to employ 'underhanded' means, that's all well and good, but don't complain if other less ethical orgs go ahead and exploit your lack of research.
    When players and admin start justifying and rationalising such actions as economics or roleplay, the system fails to perform as intended and becomes another tool for people to compete about who can be the bigger jerk.

  • EritheylEritheyl ** Trigger Warning **
    Okay, I'm not sure why this conversation is still going. The answer to the posed situation is...

    "Don't let them"!
    Crumkane, Lord of Epicurean Delights says, "WAS IT INDEED ON FIRE, ERITHEYL."

    -

    With a deep reverb, Contemptible Sutekh says, "CEASE YOUR INFERNAL ENERGY, ERITHEYL."
  • Lerad said:
    Lavinya said:
    I disagree. I'm not saying it's totally ethical, but I think you're making a bigger deal out of it than what it really is. I own a shop. There was situations were people would buy all my stock, then sell it at a higher price from their stores. I thought it SUCKED big time. I wanted novices etc to be able to afford basic goods without paying a fortune for them, but I definitely didn't suddenly think the admin should start coding around it. Instead, I instigated an IC tradeban against the people that were using these practices, banned said people from my shop (and encouraged shop owners to do the same) and found the instances of it were drastically reduced.

    And that's the crux of my point. Whether you like it or not/ think it's jackassery or not, it's something that is easily fixed IN GAME by having trade ministers that actively pay attention to their ministry! It doesn't need a big admin boot to the face or coded limits that will ultimately annoy a lot more people.
    Neither am I asking for any coded limits, if you re-read my posts. I was simply voicing my disagreement that the idea of lusternia's system should be seen as a kind of market with economic forces driving buying and selling. Using this kind of mentality to justify the kind of abuse that's being discussed in this thread is just going to lead to a system meant for helping tradespeople used against them. Here's what Eventru said:
    Eventru said:
    I don't think there's anything wrong with buying up massive amounts of commodities. If you put them for sale, you're really welcoming anyone to but them. If someone's buying you out and selling them to another org, that's the breaks of an economic system. If you're selling them for less than a village is buying, whose fault is that? What's actually wrong with that?
    Here's what you said:
    Lavinya said:
    Time to make your trade ministers do their research. You think real business don't keep a close eye on what costs their competitors are working with?

    ...

    It's called espionage? I think it's actually a very smart tactic. If you don't want to employ 'underhanded' means, that's all well and good, but don't complain if other less ethical orgs go ahead and exploit your lack of research.
    When players and admin start justifying and rationalising such actions as economics or roleplay, the system fails to perform as intended and becomes another tool for people to compete about who can be the bigger jerk.
    Sorry, I don't think the system fails to 'perform as intended'. If you're selling your comms that low, that's really your decision to leave yourself open to that. I just don't really see a problem with 46k grain being bought off when there's another 60k+ sitting in reserves.

    My point, ultimately, is that I think the system is fine as-is, and that the tools already exist for people to handle the situation. Of course, someone can still come in and buy all the available commodities, but again, "Who cares?" is just my general response. Every organization has tens of thousands of every commodity in reserves, save a few like eggs here and there. If someone wants to buy out what's available, yay, you have gold. That's part of the point of having a commodity shop (to produce gold for your city).

    Of course, there's risks. For example, someone could buy out every single comm in every city - but every city has plenty of reserves and can triple their price, give a massive discount to org members and allies, and go on their way. If they don't and just add more from their reserves, 'fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me'. Even if that does occur (Even then!), you're talking about inhuman and ridiculous amounts of gold being removed from the market (which is healthier for the general economy anyways). And commodities are naturally produced at a rate a fair bit beyond the rate of consumption, without even factoring in commodity quests, so the problem itself would self-resolve in a matter of days (far less than how long reserves would be burned through, far less than how long personal reserves would be burned through, etc etc). Ultimately, I think the risks are minimal and next to impossible to actually come to fruition.

    I'm not wholly dismissing it as 'it's an economic system', I'm dismissing it as making a mountain out of a grain of sand. I think the 'worst case scenarios' are so impossible to achieve it's irrelevant. I think people put way too much value in commodity reserves period, particularly when they're talking about hundreds of thousands. (I'm looking at you, Glomdoring, with stacks of 77k wood, 58k iron, 45.8k steel, 65k platinum, etc). There's such a ridiculously HUGE glut of commodities in the game that it's never going to get bought out, the paranoid economic dooms day scenarios will never come to pass. I mean we could cut commodity production for a year and force everyone to put those stacks into their city comm shop or let them rot, and there /still/ won't be a lack of commodities.

    If we should do anything at all, my only thought is to make stacks of commodities decay (some do, some don't already) and also decay in stockrooms. Then people who buy insane amounts of commodities are forced to use them, bring them to another commodity shop (where they'll be put for sale anyways) or lose the vast majority of it to decay. It would certainly put an end to hoarding for resale, anyways.
  • I've reiterated this before, and I'll do it again: I'm not saying we need to do anything about the situation. If there are abusers, they are rare ones (refer to my very first post) and from the start I have been saying this is a situation that doesn't need more mechanical restrictions that will end up inconvieniencing trades people.

    I never mentioned hoarding or glut of resources, or the value orgs have placed on their reserves. I'm not sure if you're replying to someone else about that topic, Eventru, or if you're just picking a bone at Glomdoring's stores, but either way, it's none of the concern that prompted my responses in this discussion so far.

    I have always been leery of the idea that when abusers use newbies or alts to take advantage of low prices in an org's shop, it can be justified as some kind of natural economic situation because low prices = high demand, and that Trade Ministers' subsequent adjustment to a higher price is a natural indication of the value of that particular commodity. Which is an idea that's been used a couple of times in this discussion before my tirade, if you want to call it that.

  • Lerad said:

    I've reiterated this before, and I'll do it again: I'm not saying we need to do anything about the situation. If there are abusers, they are rare ones (refer to my very first post) and from the start I have been saying this is a situation that doesn't need more mechanical restrictions that will end up inconvieniencing trades people.

    I never mentioned hoarding or glut of resources, or the value orgs have placed on their reserves. I'm not sure if you're replying to someone else about that topic, Eventru, or if you're just picking a bone at Glomdoring's stores, but either way, it's none of the concern that prompted my responses in this discussion so far.

    I have always been leery of the idea that when abusers use newbies or alts to take advantage of low prices in an org's shop, it can be justified as some kind of natural economic situation because low prices = high demand, and that Trade Ministers' subsequent adjustment to a higher price is a natural indication of the value of that particular commodity. Which is an idea that's been used a couple of times in this discussion before my tirade, if you want to call it that.

    I was merely explaining my opinion on the general situation, as I felt you'd unfairly represented it, versus to responding to any specific thoughts/opinions you had regarding a fix.
  • Eventru said:
     (I'm looking at you, Glomdoring, with stacks of 77k wood
    Wrong. Celest had more wood than Glomdoring until I stepped things up.

    I won't deny the rest, though.
  • Trade Ministers just need to do their jobs. The admins are not our mothers. This is a non-issue if people actually do what they're supposed to do. Trade Minister inactive? Replace them. Seriously. What a waste of a thread.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    1) Personal shop owners have much more ability to determine just who is buying and reselling their stuff because shop-logs exist.
     - Solution: Give organization commodity shops a shoplog.  This will allow trade ministers to more readily "do their job".
    2) The assertion was made that commodity shops exist to "make organizations gold".  From a player perspective, I find this to be a silly statement.  Organizations have tons of gold, organizations do not really need more.

    To me, commodity shops exist... to provide commodities.  That's it.  I would love it if players wouldn't abuse the system, letting us price the things at a low value (to encourage their use) without them all just walking away and vanishing.  Having to raise the prices on them to prevent people from abusing the system also "punishes" everyone else, which I find unfortunate, but that's just the way it has to be.

    It's not even the first time that novices have thought it was a great idea to do something like this.  I've even had them walk up to me and go, "Hey, I took all the money from your trade ministry, put more in so I can take that too."  It's like... "Er, no.  Here, have this Branding instead."  The commodities and funds are not there to make one person rich, they are there to support all the players of an organization to help them be more able to achieve their goals & desires.
    image
  • One thought I had was to have two reserves: One not for sale, and one for sale only to org-people. It'd still be part of the same 60k max, but you'd be able to split it between the two. For instance, you'd be able to say "I want 20k to be org-only and 40k not for sale at all" for one comm, and half-and-half for another, etc. This wouldn't increase the reserves at all, but it would make certain that people of that org always had comms to buy, even if MarketAlt#23 had bought up everything it could.
    image
  • EnyalidaEnyalida Nasty Woman, Sockpuppeteer to the Gods
    edited December 2012
    Raahl said:
    Trade Ministers just need to do their jobs. The admins are not our mothers. This is a non-issue if people actually do what they're supposed to do. Trade Minister inactive? Replace them. Seriously. What a waste of a thread.

    I think you miss the point here. The best thing a Trade Minister could 'just do' would be to identify commodity griefers and disable their ability to purchase commodities at that shop. Through pricing policies, this would be an effective method of containment that would require no admin oversight, and would be carried out entirely by the Trade Ministry. However... without a lack of a shoplog that job they need to 'just do' is impossible.

    As Lerad has said, no amount of 'economic policy' can be applied to the perceived problem to fix it, because it has close to nothing to do with economics! You can just make it so that it's impossible to buy the comms for everyone and work backwards to allow people to buy them as needed (a whitelist approach) instead of banning problem people (the impossible blacklist approach), but that's a poor fix.

    So yes. The solution to Trade Ministers needing to 'just do their jobs' is to give them the tools they require for that job, a shoplog. Unfortunately, the reason this is not already a feature is not (I believe) some kind of lazyness on the part of coders/admins. Some of the shop code is fairly old, and a shop with no single defined owner gets... funky. Therefore, adding a shoplog to the commodity shop isn't a simple proposition of turning on a little 'yes, they paid for it' flag, as it probably is for normal shops. 

    EDIT: While that wouldn't be a preventative measure, the lingering threat of enemy branding/persecution/boycotting-of-shops that would result from knowing exactly who it is, without fail, that is purchasing mass comms should be enough to discourage annoying trolls. One can hope, at least.
  • EnyalidaEnyalida Nasty Woman, Sockpuppeteer to the Gods
    Instead of a proper SHOPLOG, it could be some sort of REVLOG PURCHASES, useable by anyone who can use the revlog (or just a special Trade priv, fiiine), which is pinged every time anyone purchases from the commshop. 
  • Well, Glomdoring is only buying commodities at 1gp now. Feel free to convince your local Trade Minister to join in.
  • Sounds good! I also altered Gaudiguch's prices to be +90% more than the norm, and then just added a policy that reduces citizen prices by 90% (basically, only Gaudiguch citizens will be able to benefit from 'regular' comm prices).
    If it's broken, break it some more.
  • That's a neat way of doing it.

    Don't the commodity stores have lockable doors anyway? Gaudi's does. If you really wanted to you could restrict access that way without complicated coding.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord

    Eventru said:
    Lerad said:
    Lavinya said:
    I disagree. I'm not saying it's totally ethical, but I think you're making a bigger deal out of it than what it really is. I own a shop. There was situations were people would buy all my stock, then sell it at a higher price from their stores. I thought it SUCKED big time. I wanted novices etc to be able to afford basic goods without paying a fortune for them, but I definitely didn't suddenly think the admin should start coding around it. Instead, I instigated an IC tradeban against the people that were using these practices, banned said people from my shop (and encouraged shop owners to do the same) and found the instances of it were drastically reduced.

    And that's the crux of my point. Whether you like it or not/ think it's jackassery or not, it's something that is easily fixed IN GAME by having trade ministers that actively pay attention to their ministry! It doesn't need a big admin boot to the face or coded limits that will ultimately annoy a lot more people.
    Neither am I asking for any coded limits, if you re-read my posts. I was simply voicing my disagreement that the idea of lusternia's system should be seen as a kind of market with economic forces driving buying and selling. Using this kind of mentality to justify the kind of abuse that's being discussed in this thread is just going to lead to a system meant for helping tradespeople used against them. Here's what Eventru said:
    Eventru said:
    I don't think there's anything wrong with buying up massive amounts of commodities. If you put them for sale, you're really welcoming anyone to but them. If someone's buying you out and selling them to another org, that's the breaks of an economic system. If you're selling them for less than a village is buying, whose fault is that? What's actually wrong with that?
    Here's what you said:
    Lavinya said:
    Time to make your trade ministers do their research. You think real business don't keep a close eye on what costs their competitors are working with?

    ...

    It's called espionage? I think it's actually a very smart tactic. If you don't want to employ 'underhanded' means, that's all well and good, but don't complain if other less ethical orgs go ahead and exploit your lack of research.
    When players and admin start justifying and rationalising such actions as economics or roleplay, the system fails to perform as intended and becomes another tool for people to compete about who can be the bigger jerk.
    Sorry, I don't think the system fails to 'perform as intended'. If you're selling your comms that low, that's really your decision to leave yourself open to that. I just don't really see a problem with 46k grain being bought off when there's another 60k+ sitting in reserves.

    My point, ultimately, is that I think the system is fine as-is, and that the tools already exist for people to handle the situation. Of course, someone can still come in and buy all the available commodities, but again, "Who cares?" is just my general response. Every organization has tens of thousands of every commodity in reserves, save a few like eggs here and there. If someone wants to buy out what's available, yay, you have gold. That's part of the point of having a commodity shop (to produce gold for your city).

    Of course, there's risks. For example, someone could buy out every single comm in every city - but every city has plenty of reserves and can triple their price, give a massive discount to org members and allies, and go on their way. If they don't and just add more from their reserves, 'fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me'. Even if that does occur (Even then!), you're talking about inhuman and ridiculous amounts of gold being removed from the market (which is healthier for the general economy anyways). And commodities are naturally produced at a rate a fair bit beyond the rate of consumption, without even factoring in commodity quests, so the problem itself would self-resolve in a matter of days (far less than how long reserves would be burned through, far less than how long personal reserves would be burned through, etc etc). Ultimately, I think the risks are minimal and next to impossible to actually come to fruition.

    I'm not wholly dismissing it as 'it's an economic system', I'm dismissing it as making a mountain out of a grain of sand. I think the 'worst case scenarios' are so impossible to achieve it's irrelevant. I think people put way too much value in commodity reserves period, particularly when they're talking about hundreds of thousands. (I'm looking at you, Glomdoring, with stacks of 77k wood, 58k iron, 45.8k steel, 65k platinum, etc). There's such a ridiculously HUGE glut of commodities in the game that it's never going to get bought out, the paranoid economic dooms day scenarios will never come to pass. I mean we could cut commodity production for a year and force everyone to put those stacks into their city comm shop or let them rot, and there /still/ won't be a lack of commodities.

    If we should do anything at all, my only thought is to make stacks of commodities decay (some do, some don't already) and also decay in stockrooms. Then people who buy insane amounts of commodities are forced to use them, bring them to another commodity shop (where they'll be put for sale anyways) or lose the vast majority of it to decay. It would certainly put an end to hoarding for resale, anyways.

    Sounds good! I also altered Gaudiguch's prices to be +90% more than the norm, and then just added a policy that reduces citizen prices by 90% (basically, only Gaudiguch citizens will be able to benefit from 'regular' comm prices).
    Pretty sure that was suggested earlier in the thread by Ragniliff- it's kind of an unfortunate way of having to go about things, but as she said that's the only way to ensure that rogues also are affected (since you can't make a policy specifically for rogues).
    image
  • ShaddusShaddus , the Leper Messiah Outside your window.
    I'm of the opinion that a novice buying 44k grain at one time is likely abuse of some kind, and should be looked into by a random admin. For all we know, the novice is dumping them in a manse so their main can resell them.

    I'm in favor of allowing orgs to purchase "shoplogs" for the comm shop. Please.
    Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
  • ShaddusShaddus , the Leper Messiah Outside your window.
    Also, if you're a treasurer and stupid enough to offer to buy comms for above the average cost, you -deserve- to have your treasury depleted by some entrepreneur.
    Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
  • Shaddus said:
    Also, if you're a treasurer and stupid enough to offer to buy comms for above the average cost, you -deserve- to have your treasury depleted by some entrepreneur.
    I'm going to assume you mean Minister of Trade, given all the Treasurer has the ability to do is move funds around. Now admittedly what the Org -has- them doing is different Org to Org [I am a glorified accountant, more importantly opinion on the Board, not anything to do with comms]. But what role each Org has each Minister fill is an -entirely- different can of worms.

    So as to the discussion at hand, give Trade Ministers [and aides] a shoplog/revlog. It seems like something easy enough to do and [given it exists for every other component of the 'economy' and even internal guild shops] should probably exist. Frankly, I had assumed it already did as it didn't make too much sense to assume it wasn't monitored like every other Ministry.

    .oO---~---Oo.

    "Perfect. Please move quickly to the next post, as the effects of prolonged exposure to the signature are not part of this test."

    NARF!

  • while this is a nice idea targeting those who would attempt to profit by selling commodities, bear in mind that this doesn't happen too often, and limiting the amount of all novices because of a few stray ones will cause more harm than good for all.  what if chances are someone really needs more than the allotted amount?
  • This isn't something that looks like it will happen. 

    image
  • EnyalidaEnyalida Nasty Woman, Sockpuppeteer to the Gods
    We've suggested it before. IIRC, the reason it won't work is because the commodity shop works fundamentally different from other shops, because it has no store room and no owner. Therefore it's hard to just add in the pre-existing shoplog functionality and have it not totally bork out.
  • Et al:

    With respect to purchase limits from a commodities exchange: I do not see a problem with things as they are.
    With respect to sell limits from a commodities exchange: I do not see a problem with things as they are.
    With respect to a more detailed REVLOG: This would indeed be most welcome.  I suggest aggregates (similar to POWERLOG SUMMARY) would be most helpful.  Being that as it may, it would be interesting to see the grand totals by individuals as per double-entry bookkeeping (selling back doesn't decrease your purchase count for the quantity, but rather increases the sold quantity for that commodity).  Quite naturally programming issues abound, so the technical team will need to give it their consideration, and they may very well have more pressing matters before them, so regardless of whatever perceived utility or benefit let us not hold our breath.

    </RANT>
    </RANT>
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