| Brian K (White Giant) | Monday, January 26, 2009 - 08:32 pm 
The people who run this game have decided that our countries cannont make a profit and now this.
Products Sold Current Month 12,884.44M SC$
This is from a public corp selling AF, it has 250 quality and is selling product at 383% over market.
Products Sold Current Month 12,914.92M SC$
This is from another corp selling AF as well. It has a quality of 200 selling at 307% over market.
Just so you know this is across the board and both corps are producing at the same rate. There is no left over product or any other reason. This is nothing more than the final straw for some of us. Enjoy! |
| Pathetic Sheep (White Giant) | Monday, January 26, 2009 - 10:10 pm
I have countries making a profit. They haven't implemented the no profit rule yet.
Almost 13B in sales is pretty good. If you aren't profiting maybe you should try cutting costs. |
| Brian K (White Giant) | Monday, January 26, 2009 - 10:23 pm
You are not seeing what I am saying, read it in detail. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Monday, January 26, 2009 - 10:38 pm
Brian K, I have a thread fully discussing this problem already here in General.
Corporation Income Discussion
Basically, products can't be sold over 300% of market price anymore for some reason.
Q |
| Váli (Fearless Blue) | Monday, January 26, 2009 - 10:40 pm
I see what you are saying. I think Q has already spotted something similar with his corps. A response from those above I have not seen yet. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Monday, January 26, 2009 - 11:53 pm
Q has spotted the exact same thing on EVERYONE'S corps.
This is a game-wide issue. |
| Brian K (White Giant) | Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - 12:04 am
I dont believe it to be an issue. Let me rephrase, to us it is an issue, to them it is another way to reduce money. |
| Keyser Soze (Little Upsilon) | Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - 01:11 am
I think Brian is right.
We need to work around this new cap by adjusting our trade strategies and/or supply quality for they don't think there is an issue. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - 04:37 am
Brian, there should NOT be a cap on market price. Otherwise, what is the point of improving quality? Truly public corporations are now WORTHLESS.
They told us profitability would improve. In reality, its going WAY down because of this problem. I still feel its an unintended bug.
Q |
| Lolosaurus (Little Upsilon) | Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - 05:23 am
If in fact products can't be sold over 300% of market price, that does not *necessarily* mean that TPs are worthless: just drop the quality of supplies further. I've been using 160 instead of 190 in my enterprises for a little over a week and it seems (subjectively, haven't done exact measurements) more profitable than 190. Maybe it's time to try 130 or even 100.
I wish W3C was more up-front about the way stuff works though. |
| Pathetic Sheep (White Giant) | Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - 08:54 am
Lolosaurus has the right idea. I'm not planning on putting too much effort figuring the optimum until things settle.
Cutting your quality level will also save cash. A lower level reduces the FMU requirements. Different products will have a unique optimum.
The public corps would have the same advantage relative to state corps. If 300% is the exact value of maximum sale then public corps can maintain that level with either lower resources quality or fewer FMUs. |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - 09:21 am
Still screws the countries that the corps are located in, by depressing resources used fees. At least the CEOs can be restored to profitability.
I'd been hoping for a response from W3C rectifying the problem, but as none appears to be forthcoming, I think I'll depress my supply quality settings next time I feel like logging into my ceos. I can always change it back should W3C decide to redress the problem. |
| Alexander Platypus (Kebir Blue) | Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - 03:00 pm
so we dont know the new optimal corporate supply quality level yet? but it's under 190 now? |
| Sir Michael (Little Upsilon) | Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - 04:35 pm
I think we have to go with the idea that if corps can only have 50B cash reserves, then it can't afford to purchase goods above 300 quality without going into debt. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - 07:02 pm
What's the point of having goods above 300 quality then? Doesn't this defeat the purpose?
I don't know why everyone is now laying down and accepting this. Its a major problem, and one which should not exist. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - 07:06 pm
As for controlling the quality level, FMU's are ONLY reduced if you keep it below 200 quality. FMU usage does NOT increase over 200 quality.
Are we now supposed to control what our corporations upgrade to?
Most corporations, the raw materials aspect of the cost is LOW compared to other expenses. There are some exceptions of course. So lowering cost of supplies isn't going to help a whole lot.
There shouldn't be a cap on what we can sell products for, period.
Q |
| Lolosaurus (Little Upsilon) | Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - 10:37 pm
There is no point in having goods above 300 quality.
There is technically no point in having goods above 100 quality either because quality doesn't do anything in the first place.
It's an arbitrary system put into place by the gamemasters. As long as the same amount of profitability can be maintained for enterprises, it doesn't really matter. Countries are disadvantaged, but could benefit by a salary increase.
Personally I am refraining from commenting on how it *should* be until they finish (silently) changing things around... |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - 11:15 pm
Enterprise profitability though is WAY down. That's the MAIN problem here. Raw materials are generally 10-15% of the expenses of a private corporation (some higher, some lower). This change has crippled profitability. |
| Paul Hedges (Golden Rainbow) | Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 01:55 am
if you dont have a cap cccontries will go into resession like whats happening in the real world as ppl are selling proucts because of prices too high |
| Brian K (White Giant) | Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 02:45 am
Not sure why everyone is defending this, I thought most people would be outraged. I guess you are just so use to bending over and taking it in the ass. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 09:55 am
That's exactly what I'm saying as well Brian K.
I haev a exclusive poll up regarding the problem, I encourage everyone to vote yes on it. As of this posting its 24-1 in favor.
Q |
| Pathetic Sheep (White Giant) | Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 04:16 pm
Salaries, raw materials, fixed cost, and maintenance are the costs for a corporations. Country resources used isn't really an expense.
Raw materials are much more expensive than fixed costs in most corporations. Salaries can be almost anything. If you are cutting other costs the optimum salary level will be lower. So most of the cost of running a company is maintenance and raw materials. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 06:34 pm
Country resources IS an expense. Its on the expense side of the balance sheet. Its deducted from your turnover. Private corporations have Country Resources, while State corporations pay artificially higher raw material and maintenance costs.
Pathetic Sheep, I don't know why you are like the ONLY person who doesn't care about how much the game is ruined or bugged.
Country Resources is the MAIN cost for most private corporations. While its the MAIN source of income for countries.
As for the other costs, it varies from corporation to corporation. For some salaries will be a higher share (like FMU's), while others, raw materials are a much larger factor (like gasoline).
If Turnover drops, so does Country Resources, but the % is still the same for the Private corporation. If Raw Materials drops, its still the same %. If Salaries drop, its still the same %. Problem is, Turnover took a HUGE % drop, while the others went down slightly. This resulted in a HUGE drop in profits for EVERYTHING. Countries, corporations, enterprises.
The artificial market price cap needs to go, or the player base is going to walk.
Q |
| Noproblem | Thursday, January 29, 2009 - 01:45 am
At one point the GM said basically that they subsidized the quality aspect of the market.
If you ordered a supply at quality 190, and somebody else supplied at quality 315, then you got and paid for 190, and the supplier got paid for 315, and the game made up the difference. This no longer seems to be the case.
I guess they don't want to subsidize anymore, but why would this aspect suddenly changed, I don't know. But it has changed. |
| FarmerBob (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, January 29, 2009 - 01:50 am
Yes. This is the Quality Paradox. I wonder if W3C is attempting to "fix" this issue. |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, January 29, 2009 - 02:48 am
I can understand if they wanted to "fix" the issue, even if I disagree. But they should have ANNOUNCED it, instead of making it a stealth change. |
| Slare (Golden Rainbow) | Thursday, January 29, 2009 - 04:36 am
If they were really trying to eliminate the "quality paradox", they are not doing a good job of it.
When I first started playing, it took a long time for me to understand that what I am selling isn't what the customer is buying. Its a dumb system frankly, probably only there because they couldn't figure out how to make high quality items desirable. I think finding some way to getting rid of it would be a net plus.
But it should involve undesirable products not selling, rather than undesirable products selling for a different price than the producer specified it be sold for.
Having better quality lead to increased profit margins via being able to buy cheaper supplies rather than using the paradox to artificially support selling at a higher price is a really weird way to go about things, if that is truly what they are shooting for. I wish they'd tell us. |
