I'm pretty sure we could fund Pandora-Glom and not even run out of half our funds at this point. It would've been neat, but alas- it never went anywhere aside from getting the Eye.
However, as things go... if it's a choice between ensuring that your org-members can get comms when they need it, or them staring at the listing stating 0 comms because someone in another org bought it out, it's a pretty clear-cut choice given that gold isn't really needed and the only actual point to Comm-shops is to provide your members with that they need.
I do think that we kept our commodity prices with Celest reasonable (as they kept theirs with us that way), but we don't really trade with enemy-orgs and Gaudiguch's pricing earned a response in kind. I can't really check what our policies are though.
And, as more trade-aides go, that introduces its own set of issues (I don't know many Trade Ministers who really had many aides due to those issues).
The situation you describe with draining available stock can and does happen just as easily within an org - without your commlog you have no way of knowing if the "guilty" (if indeed buying things you are selling is a crime) party is foreign or domestic. If it's a situation of buying low and reselling elsewhere, I hate to break it to you, but odds are the culprit is someone within the org, because they get the cheapest buy prices.
It's been a while since I was Glom and able to enter Celest, but I always recalled their prices being high to us. I'm attacking neither org for this practice - I've said I understand the impulse - it just happens to be a glom who is responding, and Glom's market with which I have personal experience.
It's fear, and not fact, that prevent trade ministries from expanding. When we took on additional aides in Glom, we took precautions, everything worked out fine. Nothing prevents you from doing so again if it were merely the threat of inconvenience that holds you back from engaging in freer trade of commodities. Glomdoring has a number of active long-term residents that could be trusted with this responsibility regardless.
All I can say is, once we got rid of the Glom who we caught doing it (the same guy who went and blamed you for buying & running), the perpetrators since have been non-Gloms. Since things got adjusted, we just haven't run into the issue again.
That said, obviously it won't always remain that way (especially when a lot of focus is being paid to it in threads like these), but there's only so much you can do. You take some precautions that seem reasonable, and pay attention to it beyond that to try and ensure that things stay smooth.
Fewer people with the ability to abuse it does help.
Also, I know you're not attacking anyone here- it's simply a differing view on how comm-shops function, with some ideas being suggested here and there to address things. It's a discussion that is much-needed, really.
Basically: Organizations are, as long as gold is unnecessary, not really going to view the commodity shop as anything but a repository for deploying commodities to their citizens for use (I feel pretty confident in this assertion).
What we need to do is find ways to diminish this feeling, to make organizations more willing to put their commodities out for stocking and general availability, while ensuring that they can continue to provide for their own members.
That's my own personal interpretation at least. I don't think it's impossible, since we've had a few ideas throughout here that could be taken and adjusted towards that end.
You get the same thing with city shops. I have a shop which I know for a fact isn't going to be making a meaningful profit. But there's this feeling that "Well, we have all these empty shops, someone should stock them with stuff" out there and I'm willing to set aside 20k gold every RL month to have a shop to sell stuff for me.
You get the same thing with city shops. I have a shop which I know for a fact isn't going to be making a meaningful profit. But there's this feeling that "Well, we have all these empty shops, someone should stock them with stuff" out there and I'm willing to set aside 20k gold every RL month to have a shop to sell stuff for me.
This, word for word.
Crumkane, Lord of Epicurean Delights says, "WAS IT INDEED ON FIRE, ERITHEYL."
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With a deep reverb, Contemptible Sutekh says, "CEASE YOUR INFERNAL ENERGY, ERITHEYL."
I set Gaudiguch's prices sky-high (not only for Glomdoring, but for Celest, too - basically, anyone Not Gaudiguch) because I've been watching things closely for months and there are really those times when massive amounts of commodities are bought out and our reserves got sapped fast. Particularly metal commodities, which are a real pain to get (Ixthiaxa doesn't quite cut it).
With that said, we have a disproportionate amount of silk, marble, and cloth in reserve, which we sell for knockdown prices (if you're a citizen, of course). Come to us, tailors.
Missing a single day of running around the UV checking for queens = Cthoglogg dead. And I've been told that the Keph quest is too hard. Snort. Oh well, at least I managed to keep him up for a decently long time this time around, and I had fun, I guess.
Hee. That was a concentrated Serenwilde effort though (the questing part, not the actual killing), to be fair. Not that I know how difficult any of it is.
I've seen queens up and about a lot and often, not that it matters. The only queen needed to take down old Chtoggy is Imhohet, and there's no luck factor or ease of progress destruction factor involved.
The kephera quest of raising queens is an entirely different thing and far far more difficult even if there were no luck factor involved. Don't mix em up.
Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
Eh, I know I shouldn't be responding to a respond to my tweet, or it'll start turning into a derail, but I can't resist.
Yeah, to take down Cthog, you only have to raise 1 (I'm actually pretty sure it's 2, but I could be wrong) queens. And I've been keeping Cthog up by trying my best to keep those queens down. So the "kephera quest of raising queens" was exactly what I was trying to disrupt, and as a result, got told it was too hard. (lol) I don't know, raising queens seems pretty easy from what I can see. Now, raising zenobia. That's no walk in the park, yeah. Good luck to whoever's trying to do it, if anyone is masochistic enough to try.
Yeah, we killed the guy once in the Prison and I got treated to a long curse-filled rant about how hard and difficult and rargh raaaaaaaaaaaaaaage (<-- That's pretty much the sense it made).
I've created enough curio pieces to almost fully complete all my vernal curios... yet still I've not made a single rare curio piece. Why must they be so... rare?
Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
At the same time, I have managed to generate the three Soulless rares I already had (yes, I broke down and started questing, ugh). Wish I had gotten the diamond rare instead, though.
Also, I just realized the subforums (Q&A, combat logs, etc) actually had stuff in them. There should probably be some sort of alert that there's new posts in there.
Did someone do the counter quests (helping forsaken) in Icewynd yesterday/last night? Just wondering if that happened, or if things just reset. Disappointing, either way.
Comments
However, as things go... if it's a choice between ensuring that your org-members can get comms when they need it, or them staring at the listing stating 0 comms because someone in another org bought it out, it's a pretty clear-cut choice given that gold isn't really needed and the only actual point to Comm-shops is to provide your members with that they need.
I do think that we kept our commodity prices with Celest reasonable (as they kept theirs with us that way), but we don't really trade with enemy-orgs and Gaudiguch's pricing earned a response in kind. I can't really check what our policies are though.
And, as more trade-aides go, that introduces its own set of issues (I don't know many Trade Ministers who really had many aides due to those issues).
It's been a while since I was Glom and able to enter Celest, but I always recalled their prices being high to us. I'm attacking neither org for this practice - I've said I understand the impulse - it just happens to be a glom who is responding, and Glom's market with which I have personal experience.
It's fear, and not fact, that prevent trade ministries from expanding. When we took on additional aides in Glom, we took precautions, everything worked out fine. Nothing prevents you from doing so again if it were merely the threat of inconvenience that holds you back from engaging in freer trade of commodities. Glomdoring has a number of active long-term residents that could be trusted with this responsibility regardless.
Vive l'apostrophe!
That said, obviously it won't always remain that way (especially when a lot of focus is being paid to it in threads like these), but there's only so much you can do. You take some precautions that seem reasonable, and pay attention to it beyond that to try and ensure that things stay smooth.
Fewer people with the ability to abuse it does help.
Also, I know you're not attacking anyone here- it's simply a differing view on how comm-shops function, with some ideas being suggested here and there to address things. It's a discussion that is much-needed, really.
What we need to do is find ways to diminish this feeling, to make organizations more willing to put their commodities out for stocking and general availability, while ensuring that they can continue to provide for their own members.
That's my own personal interpretation at least. I don't think it's impossible, since we've had a few ideas throughout here that could be taken and adjusted towards that end.
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The kephera quest of raising queens is an entirely different thing and far far more difficult even if there were no luck factor involved. Don't mix em up.
Yeah, to take down Cthog, you only have to raise 1 (I'm actually pretty sure it's 2, but I could be wrong) queens. And I've been keeping Cthog up by trying my best to keep those queens down. So the "kephera quest of raising queens" was exactly what I was trying to disrupt, and as a result, got told it was too hard. (lol) I don't know, raising queens seems pretty easy from what I can see. Now, raising zenobia. That's no walk in the park, yeah. Good luck to whoever's trying to do it, if anyone is masochistic enough to try.
Vive l'apostrophe!
Vive l'apostrophe!