| Tom Willard (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 03:02 pm 
Products in simcountry are traded on a real market. The base price for each product is set by a production rule that is fixed for each product in the game.
Fluctuations depend on demand and supply. Pricing can change up to 3% per game month and the base price can change between 0.3 and about 1.8 of the original base price. In addition, the price can increase by the quality of the product.
Anyone who offers products can ask for any price.
There is no cap what so ever on the price of products and any price goes.
Simcountry has always proud itself of its real markets where products are traded by demand and supply. This principle will of course stand and will not be compromised in any way.
Products are always sold to other countries and corporations. The simcountry game master does not buy or sell products except for the addition of some products to the market when shortages are such that there is a danger of a market breakdown.
Anyone can ask for any price but there must be a buyer. If there is no buyer, there are two possibilities:
1. No sale
2. A lower price is used to accommodate the buyer. The average between the requested and offered price can be used.
Many corporations in simcountry produce at very high quality and there are no buyers at this price.
Although many players want the price they ask for, there is no one who is ready to pay that price.
In the past, countries with no president wrongly paid any price. As the gamemaster kept their economies running, gamemaster in fact heavily subsidized the price.
This problem was eliminated. There is no reason for the gamemaster to pump money into the economy while there are in fact no buyers for the products.
Currently, the paid price remains higher than it should. C3 countries pay less but the price they pay remains higher than is good for their economies.
If C3 countries will pay the real price, the average price of products will decline.
The trade strategies in the game are clear. If no one wants to pay the price of a product, it will remain unsold. This strategy was not always enforced in the past.
To make the trading more transparent and correct any misunderstandings, We will enforce the no sale principle when there is a price difference.
A player, as before, can ask for any price.
If there are buyers, the deal will come through, exactly as it happens today.
If there are no buyers at the requested price, the products will remain unsold.
Urgent action will be needed by the player. Large quantities of unsold products can cause corporations to bankrupt.
To stimulate more trading in very high quality products, we will allow players to purchase products of higher quality and we will look into the implementation of new features that will give advantages to countries that are purchasing higher quality products.
We will take some time to find the right way in the introduction of this process. A full blown change can cause instabilities in the initial period. We expect more price fluctuations and more shortages on the market because large quantities of overprized products will remain unsold and will eventually be discarded.
Many messages on another trail on the Forum are claiming that there is a product quality cap and ask for the requested price to be paid. This is despite the fact that we have explained the same before.
This discussion is in fact misinforming players about the way simcountry works. In the past we removed all discussions that have spread misinformation.
There is no way to sell a product at some price is there is no request to buy the same product at the same price.
In the mean time, profitability of corporations remains good and with the recent decline in cost, most countries are doing better than before. |
| Treasurer (White Giant) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 03:33 pm
Quote:We will take some time to find the right way in the introduction of this process. A full blown change can cause instabilities in the initial period.
And instabilities haven't occurred already?
Quit blowing smoke up our rear ends Tom.
yeah, remove posts that point out the flaws in the programming Tom....WAY TO GO. My corps in question sold off the entire stock that was set to sell at 333 quality plus a minor bump for demand. SOLD EVERYTHING!!! Do you even get this? Yet the price received was not what was asked, not even anywhere near it, yet it sold anyway.
Thanks for dodging the issue yet once again. you have made up my mind. |
| Zdeněk Pavlovský (Fearless Blue) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 03:33 pm
Hi there Tom Willard,
would you take a few minutes of your time and be so kind to explain to me the following?
1. go to World market
2. pick random product in "green"
3. place order for everything there is available @ 100 quality
What happens is that everything you ordered will be delivered at around 100 quality.
If I accept your arugments regarding supply and demand in the context of quality, and confront it with the example from above, I cannot find any logical explanation how it is possible.
The only logical explanation is that everything what was in "green" was offered at 100 quality, however, that seems impossible to me.
Is that the case? Everything what is offered on the World market is offered at 100 quality?
Thanks in advance for you time. |
| The Crafty Cockney | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 03:48 pm
Tom, I think the problem was that high quality products WERE being sold, but not for their right price, so instead of the product sitting on the shelf until the trade strategy reduced its price, or the need for the product became such that purchase became acceptable for someone, the higher quality just disappeared.
I for one welcome the outlined improvements, making trade strategies more important.
But I have yet to come across any player saying their country/ies are doing better than before. |
| Danneh Turner (Fearless Blue) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 03:50 pm
Thanks for trying to be clear. There is still an issue however with the quality.
Even if you enforce "the no sale principle when there is a price difference", there will still be countries and corps ordering products with quality = 100 and corporations turning out products with high quality - will the gamemaster still be making up the difference in the price multiplier?
Until the game implements a matrix of quality and price for each product (i.e. where there can be a different demand for high quality supplies compared to low quality supplies), there will never be a "real market". At the moment there is just a vector of quality with a scalor of price (i.e. a general demand where double quality means double price, even if there's so much double quality goods that you couldn't give it away). |
| Tom Willard (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 04:41 pm
Products were sold at a higher price because the trading procedures tried to make a market when C3 products where sold.
It made a market and made sure products were indeed sold. To C3 countries.
This lead to the confusion. The products are sold and in fact subsidized.
The trading procedure should stop making a market.
If there is a request for the quality then sell, if not don't trade.
The trader, when it came to C3 products did make a market. The trading procedure was linient and prices were too high.
it does it now too but takes some averaging on the price.
Now everyone is in arms while the price paid is too high.
It should and will leave these products unsold.
I don't understand the 100 quality question. Many corporations order at 100 and many offer at 100. If you see something that looks wrong to you, mail me and I will have a look.
Ordering at 100 should deliver at 100. The question is if you order at 100 and there is only 150 available.
who pays?
until now, C3 countries paid, now they pay a little less.
The trade should not take place at all. The player who places the order should raise quality or the seller should reduce the price.
I was for averaging both ways. The trader could average the trade and close it.
It seems that many prefer it to be "clean".
Give me the price I asked for.
fine.
You will either get the price you asked for and
you will accept a more frequent "no thanks" no sale result.
we will probably allow people to choose the strategy they want.
The startegy:
Give me the price I ask for and let the gamemaster pay the difference does not exist. |
| Tom Willard (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 04:50 pm
Danneh:
The gamemaster cannot make the difference.
It will add thousands of trillions into the world economy.
The world economy is a closed system with very few small exceptions.
the world bank sometimes give loans but this is insignificant as there is enough money and it takes it out too.
I cannot think of other examples right now but there are and very small.
the gold coins stream in and out is of course a larger "leak" and goes both ways.
Averaging is a better way as one gets less than intended and the other pays more than intended.
We should create incentives as I described before, to make it attractive for countries to order high quality. |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 04:59 pm
Are you kidding me Tom? I could contract 370 quality from a public corp so somewhere, thus ENSURING demand for my product, and then STILL only be paid at 300! LOL
If trade strategies above 300 are really too damn high, then 333 quality product should just SIT UNSOLD until the trade strategies reduce price after a few months to a tolerable level. Not sell the same month at a fiat lower price that is NOT what the trade strategies are set for. |
| Danneh Turner (Fearless Blue) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 05:00 pm
If there is an order for 100 quality (I'll call this Q100 from now), but only Q150 available, how will there ever be a trade? It is stated that ordering at Q100 should deliver at Q100. Even if the Q150 stock is reduced to minimum asking price, how can a trade ever happen if all the orders are for Q100? |
| Foo Manchoo (White Giant) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 05:07 pm
... |
| Stuart Taylor (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 05:15 pm
I guess we will see you in a week or so then Foo Manchoo..... |
| Zdeněk Pavlovský (Fearless Blue) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 05:20 pm
Ordering at 100 should deliver at 100. The question is if you order at 100 and there is only 150 available.
who pays?
until now, C3 countries paid, now they pay a little less.
The trade should not take place at all. The player who places the order should raise quality or the seller should reduce the price. - Tom Willard
This is what Danneh Turner refers to, and I believe following:
The buyer pays the 100-quality rates. The seller profits at the rate of whatever quality at which the products were produced. The game master covers the difference. - Kevin Henry
from another thread is the .. reality, is how the game engine handles such situation, simply because if it would not work this way, trade would not happen, and the economy would collapse.
I can understand why the GM does not want c3s to buy high quality thus expensive products and services sold by the players (Tom Willard called it ... subsidize), however, real market is based on supply and demand, and if there is shortage then c3s, and anyone else for that matter, has no choice but to buy whatever quality at whatever price there is.
If you will get lost in desert, with no water in 100s miles radius, and I - by some miracle - happen to be there selling a bottle of water, you can be sure you will pay me any price I will ask. |
| Tom Willard (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 05:35 pm
A contract for quality 370 should go for 370.
if not, show me an example and we will fix it.
if the offer is for 150 and the request is for 100:
C3 used to pay 150 for it.
now, C3 pays probably around 135.
If averaging: C3 should pay 125
If you only sell for the price you have set, then no sale.
If 370 is asked and only 150 is offered, they probably close now at 370 - 20%? (294)
averaging will mean: 260.
or no sale.
There will always be a problem to match quality.
there is no way around it but to make a market in some way.
You can shout a lot of obscenities but the seller and buyer have to make a deal.
The webmaster should facilitate, not finance it.
Maybe the US government wants to pay for it? |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 05:45 pm
The cost averaging you speak of completely eliminates the point of the "reduce price for each month the product remains unsold" half of the trade strategy.
In the case of severe-shortage product, I may have it set to a very low percentage. In some munitions markets on LU, for example, supply has been less than 20% of demand.
The buyer can either pay the price, or not obtain product. If I see five months unsold stock and want to reduce the price, I will.
Otherwise, let the corp go bankrupt. |
| Tom Willard (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 05:48 pm
The high price was not paid by choice when there was a shortage.
it was paid by default because the trader was programmed to have C3s pay whatever was asked for.
C3s were paying far too much, their economies were losing money, (10.000 countries) and anoth part of the simcountry software kept them afloat by adding cash.
When shortages get very severe, an "immediate buying" procedure kicks in. this procedure could indeed trade differently and I know it does although it is a long time ago.
no reason to pay the high price by default. |
| Zdeněk Pavlovský (Fearless Blue) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 05:50 pm
As far as I know it has "never" been a problem in the past, and it always worked like that, at least since 2003. After all its system "invented" by the GM - W3C.
If Q370 is offered - BMW and Q150 is asked - Dacia, then they wont close at -20% or anything like that. One is selling BMW and the other one wants to buy Dacia and that is that.
Sure market has to be made somehow, and theres no way around it, however, as much as W3C feels they cannot subsidize it, players feel being ripped off.
I will repeat myself again, but if it was not for the Cash Market with option to cash out, this would not be an issue, because the GM could subsidize, could let players to make virtual meaningless money, as much as they wanted. |
| Tom Willard (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 05:54 pm
Keith,
this is an option. let them sit there unsold and the corporation will bankrupt.
I know that the monthly reduction procedure lost part of its functionality because the market and quality mismatch caused a major problem.
The C3 "solution" was created at the time because they did not complain. now they do and if they stop buying, there will be a very big problem for many many sellers of high quality.
the market making procedure, although at a lower intensity, is making the sales as we speak.
this is why currently product ARE sold, be it at a somewhat lower price. |
| Tom Willard (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 06:47 pm
Not true.
The cashing out function in simcountry is of no consequence at all.
The total amount paid out per month is 100 to 150$. we had a 250$ month some time ago. wow. so this is really of no consequence.
This is not even one day salary to any of our engineers. we don't care if this amount will become 1000 a month.
We are buying game money by the bucket these days and pay out thousands of gold coins. no problem at all.
The market should remain a closed system and we are trying to bring it back to the desired level.
If we start adding money to the market, everything will become worthless, the markets will fall over as demand will outstrip supply by an ever increasing factor and there will be no economy.
the game does not make sense at all if money is falling off the trees.
There are monthly votes to give everyone money every day and all of them are wisely voted down by a huge majority because adding money in this way or any other way will kill the whole logic of the economy.
In fact, we had some problems in the past with too much money being created. This is why there is today too much money in the worlds, concentrated with a number of players.
we don't want to take it away. we want to give them gold coins or cash if the want to cash these gold coins but we want it out of the system.
Some use the cash to purchase huge quantities of products and store them in enterprises.
they are capable of bying all the weapons that are produced and they are able to flood the market.
Playing with the markets is part of the game. However this is what you get when there is too much money around and money supplies are unlimited. |
| Zdeněk Pavlovský (Fearless Blue) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 07:23 pm
If I wanted to argue about this, I could point out that it would be interesting if everyone would withdraw their "investments" at once, not by the rules set for cash withdrawals, but solely based on total in-game assets represented by population, stocks of products, services, weapons and ammo.
but I don't so .. fair enough.
Thanks for your replies Tom Willard, its appreciated. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 07:59 pm
Tom, I can give you MANY examples of Contracts not being fulfilled at market price modified by quality.
As for the reduction you speak of, it does not explain why 370 quality and 333 quality sell at about the SAME price!
I agree with several others, if there is severe demand, then the seller's price should be met. On the flip side, if there is large supply, then the buyer's price should be met. In-between should be somewhere more toward the middle.
If Simcountry could come up with something like what i just proposed, more elasticity in the price based on supply/demand, I think that would be 1) more realistic, and 2) more fair to everyone. Couple this with increased incentive for high quality products, and enable buying of higher quality products (cap is 250 currently, when up to 370 can be produced), and I think you would solve most of our complaints and gripes.
So to summarize: High demand = close to sellers price. High supply = close to buyers price. This could be done similar to how most indexes in the game work, as a average of several months, to prevent hard swings one direction or the other. Combine this with more incentive for buying high quality products.
The current problem is most people want to sell as high of quality good as possible, while buying as low as possible (for countries), and not a whole lot higher for corporations. There is no incentive to buy products over 190 quality, and currently there is no incentive to buy over ~ 160 quality.
Also, if I buy say 190 quality, at 190%, and someone else is selling 333 quality at 333%, if both have say 20% increase, then in a couple months, price is met. Does the buyer still receive the quality asked for, or does he get stuck with 333? The seller obviously is getting paid his requested price. This is an extreme example, but I figure it would better illustrate this point.
Tom, having read your explanation, I agree with your "market making procedure", I just feel it should be adjusted for the supply/demand. FMU's, as an example, should almost always be swinging to the seller's price. While something like coffee, more toward the buyer.
Thanks for your detailed explanation, alot of things make sense now.
However, Common Market/Contracts are working the same way as the world market, this should be fixed. If you want, I can email you several examples of this, with the math to back it up.
Q |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 08:02 pm
Oh, and thought I would share my latest finding.
The modification Tom speaks of, with regard to trade strategies, is a little more detailed than what he explained.
If you are selling 333 product at 360%, chances are its not going to be sold.
If you are selling 333 product at 340%, chances are it WILL be sold.
If you are selling 370 product at 400%, chances are its not going to be sold.
If you are selling 370 product at 380%, chances are it WILL be sold.
However, the price given in ALL these transactions, remains about 290-297%, when the product is sold.
Q |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 08:05 pm
" Keith,
this is an option. let them sit there unsold and the corporation will bankrupt.
I know that the monthly reduction procedure lost part of its functionality because the market and quality mismatch caused a major problem.
The C3 "solution" was created at the time because they did not complain. now they do and if they stop buying, there will be a very big problem for many many sellers of high quality.
the market making procedure, although at a lower intensity, is making the sales as we speak.
this is why currently product ARE sold, be it at a somewhat lower price. "
Tom, I have a wonderful idea!
There is now, on the country financial statement page, a line item for "Spending by the Population 0.00M SC$" In a country of 84 million (my main on LU), the population spends not one cent.
Use it. Those products the country orders for its population to use, such as food products and household products, the country should be able to sell back to its population.
If the country pays for 333Q product, have the population buy the goods it uses at the 333Q price.
This reduces the financial hit to countries caused by ordering high-quality products to those the country itself needs to use, such as military supplies. However if you implement your ideas concerning unit quality there could be benefit for countries there too.
Countries that are doing well, with reasonably high salary indexes, should have population that can afford to purchase the high-quality products and pay the high-quality prices for products the country orders on its population's behalf.
This can also increase welfare index, and the effect of welfare index on corporate productivity can be attenuated somewhat.
There is a potential mechanism in the game already to make high-quality product worthwhile; it just sits unused. The line item already exists.
Salaries as paid to workers now (after taxes) disappear into a vacuum. Countries that have high salaries should have their population clamoring for high-quality product--and willing to pay for it. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 08:09 pm
Keith, excellent suggestion. Excellent.
Though that doesn't solve the rest of Simcountry's products, it does help a good chunk of them.
Q |
| Tom Willard | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 10:57 pm
Keith.
you misunderstand the spending by the population.
the money the population earns comes into the country finances and the country is paying for the products the population needs.
the numbers are not matching each month so we report them on the financial statement.
long term they should be about the same.
What can be done is as I suggested before, making it attractive for countries to purchase high quality by, for example, increasing the welfare index of countries that purchase higher quality product.
Higher welfare index will improve the country score but more importantly, increase the productivity of its workers and with it, the production levels in corporations and their profitability. This mechanisme is already in place but the welfare index is currently not influenced by the average of the quality of the products, consumed in the country. |
| Tom Willard | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 11:17 pm
The suggestions I see here, keep assuming that the product trader will add money to the market to make prices go this way or another way.
This is not a good assumption.
The amount paid, should be exactly the same as the amount received and the trading program should not add or remove any money from the process.
Gamemaster has nothing to do with money moving between buyers and sellers.
I think that the best way will be to set up a default that will average the quality of offers and requests and make a trade at the average price.
if you do not want this to take place, you should have the option to enforce the price you requested and rather have no deal at all than one at a lower price.
This can sometimes deliver more money but also, many times, no money at all but it will not make you sell your products at a lower price than you want for them.
We will look at the options of how to deal with the unsold products:
1. Take them from the market at a very low price after 3 months. (10% of value?)
2. Cancel the old offers and the products will remain with the corporation. It can re-offer them and they will be sold or not. etc.
The latter is probably better.
Contracts:
again, the message is not clear enough and more info will help.
I will have contract trades checked tomorrow and make sure that if there is a contract at any price, it will be executed at that price as there is an offer and request at the same price.
We can and will check for fraudulent contracts and in such cases, will discard all products and contracts. |
| John R | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 11:30 pm
You cannot have a closed system. To think otherwise is a grave mistake.
In every game, money is created out of thin air, to assure players can play. Even in the real world, money is added or burnt as necessary.
If production were to increase, the monetary mass the same and the products remained anchored to the same base price, the markets would collapse due to insolvency.
The game's intervention is needed to assure that all works as it is expected, for consumer and buyer.
But, most importantly of all, this is a storm in a glass of a water. This is non-issue. This is all nonsense.
The game worked fine as it was. This attempt to tie loose ends, and reduce game cash levels and this never-ending reach for realism is unnecessary and unwise. From a game point of view, illogical even.
Why in heaven would any of you threaten the stability, the room we had to grow?
I don't think none is quite well aware with what he is playing with once again. |
| John R | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 11:54 pm
I just recalled one very precise reason I never enjoyed when a game tried to close its monetary market:
Unlike the real world, when a player dies (goes inactive), his assets die with him, instead of being inherited by his next of kin. In essence, the currency that player owned is put out of circulation, which is what matters.
There are more. |
| Nute Gunray (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 12:41 am
Mr. Willard Here is yet another flaw in the your arguement
Quote:New members order always Best Price
That is the rule and many other players have set their trade strategies to buy at best price. So if my country is ordering at best price and the only products availible are priced at 333% above the base price then it is only logical that my country will have no choice but to pay that price as it is the best price.
Nute Gunray |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 12:44 am
"Keith.
you misunderstand the spending by the population.
the money the population earns comes into the country finances and the country is paying for the products the population needs.
the numbers are not matching each month so we report them on the financial statement.
long term they should be about the same."
You are saying that if a country orders high quality products for its population, the population will buy those high quality products at the correct price adjusted for quality?
One of the major, major reasons why countries order at 100 quality is because there is no way to verify this. We need the ability to log prices paid for automatic orders, as well as the prices for individual products that the population buys. The game already logs the last price paid for corporation supplies, so I think this is a reasonable request.
Countries buy 100 quality because presidents view buying higher quality as an unnecessary expense which yields no return. If the population will pay high-quality price for high-quality product used, and the outlay returned to the country because of spending by the population, this fear of overpaying can be alleviated, because cost of ordering products and spending by the population will wash as you say. However, no president wants to order 370 quality goods only to figure out later the population only pays for the use of those goods at the 100 quality price.
Therefore, presidents are cautious and order low quality for products their country needs. Because there is no record of price paid for products the country needs, and price paid for spending by the population, presidents rightly fear being reamed by a huge spread as outlined above. My proposal would remove this concern and remove a major reason, perceived or actual, to order low quality. |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 12:51 am
"The suggestions I see here, keep assuming that the product trader will add money to the market to make prices go this way or another way.
This is not a good assumption."
I did not make that assumption.
In my proposal, only the population of well-developed countries with high salaries would have the money available to the population to buy high-quality product.
Those salaries are paid by corporations (be it state, private, or public), and by government, not by GM.
There is no subsidy inherent in that.
In fact, under such a system, C3s would likely be the countries ordering 100 quality, because state corps in C3s pay low salaries and 100 quality would be all that the population could afford.
If 100 quality product for C3s was unavailable, those C3s would experience shortages of product or take loans instead of having money added to their treasury by GM. |
| Zentrino (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 04:05 am
Will these changes lead to a more realistic use of common markets within an Empire? Currently, it is not considered a good idea, or even profitable at all, to use contracts to supply your own needs from your own corporations. This has never made sense to me.
Within my Empire and Enterprises, I control 1000's of corps. I could easily be self-sufficient in production of my country's needs. Instead, I produce products in my corps and then sell them on the market all while my countries order products from other corps on the market.
Should an incentive be given for self-sufficiency within countries or Empires?
(On a side note Tom, I think my government has thrown just about enough money after bad financial choices--let's not encourage them to throw any at a game  ) |
| Jo Jo Hun (Fearless Blue) | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 05:09 am
"There will always be a problem to match quality.
there is no way around it but to make a market in some way."
It would be neater if the quality level did not change during a transaction. We know there is little supply at most given levels one might desire. For example, once the benefit to welfare index for higher quality foods has been established, I may want milk at Q150 because I think that's the optimum trade-off level, but I probably can't buy much at exactly Q150. The market-making process could, though, buy me some ratio of say Q100 and Q333 to give an average of Q150. This could work well for products used and stored in large quantities, though not so well for single items.
Another way to match quality would be for quality of products to decrease the longer they are on the market waiting to be sold. Instead of the price offered decreasing each month, the quality can decrease each month, until it matches a buy order. After a while producers will tend to adjust the quality level downward toward the levels demanded.
More information provided on the buyer's end would refine the market-making process, at the expense of more data processing. |
| Leen Dierts (White Giant) | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 09:41 am
Tom wrote: "Simcountry has always proud itself of its real markets where products are traded by demand and supply. This principle will of course stand and will not be compromised in any way."
It would very much help to create a real market, when we get tools to buy and sell stock, semi-automated.
Some years ago i posted this idea/suggestion. In theory it is possible to use a script to perform this action (but that would be unfair to other players who don't use scripts).
It would help to balance markets when all serious players would use the trademarket to buy/sell goods. The principle is simple: you buy and store goods when the price is low and supply is high. You build up a stockpile. When you see prices + demand go up, you sell.
This can be done manuel but then you need more then 8 hours per day tot manage your empire.
My idea for trading-tools are like this:
On the trade-page, make automation settings:
1) use market-tool when remaining cash in country is more then ....X (to prevent bankruptcy)
2) for each product togle: use market tool yes/no (to skip products that show a lousy market-performance, or to concentrate on some specific products)
3) then per product when you use the tool:
--->set minimum stock (no selling when less then X)
--->set maximum stock (maybe allso set by the gamemaster), to keep things realistic
--->set buying conditions (ammount/per month, when price is less then... etcetera
--->set selling conditions
That is the basic idea. |
| FarmerBob | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 03:08 pm
Quote:Products in simcountry are traded on a real market. The base price for each product is set by a production rule that is fixed for each product in the game.
Fluctuations depend on demand and supply. Pricing can change up to 3% per game month and the base price can change between 0.3 and about 1.8 of the original base price. In addition, the price can increase by the quality of the product.
And...
Simcountry has always proud itself of its real markets where products are traded by demand and supply. This principle will of course stand and will not be compromised in any way.
I am not an economist; however, am I wrong to see a complete contradiction here?
Or is market defined as the good folks at GOSPLAN would have defined it? |
| John R | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 04:12 pm
Things work quite well when I do them on my own, alone.
Quote:You are saying that if a country orders high quality products for its population, the population will buy those high quality products at the correct price adjusted for quality?
One of the major, major reasons why countries order at 100 quality is because there is no way to verify this.
Yes. The population buys the products adjusted to the current market price and quality.
And no. Players buy at 100Q to avoid the whims of market fluctuations.
What there is no way of knowing is if the population is buying what it can afford. They always buy and pay correctly, even if they possibly don't own enough money.
Quote:Should an incentive be given for self-sufficiency within countries or Empires?
No and there is no need for that.
And why would that happen? For anyone who knows anything about International Trade, he would call that, in your terms, "unrealistic"; not to mention financially unwise, a blatant waste of advantage, a mockery to David Ricardo.
Open market is rule, wisely and rationally so.
I have already explained Common Markets before. They are one step down from the de facto EMU of the World Market. |
| John R | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 04:13 pm
Enough is enough. To extend, pull and create problems is a sign for pause.
Between the addition of a quality effect to weapons coupled with the wavering payment, but certain purchase of country stocks and the to-be-added affect of quality stocks to welfare, the quality issue is a non-issue; except on what ammo and public facilities are concerned, along with production plants. But I can already imagine what the solution for those will be: when they reach 100, they will be erased and forced to buy anew. And if I ask why?... Realism.
For the producer and the consumer all things, in the end, work quite well. They work, because the game intervenes to assure the producer sells and receives proper payment, and assure the consumer buys as asked and pays as he should. In the process, money is either lost or created.
In recent years, the amount of money added was far more than what was removed. In time, many players accumulated large amounts of wealth. That wealth was address with financial services. Now, the possibility to allow such "extra" wealth to be created and accumulated is now being address through this "solution" regarding an "issue" concerning product quality. In assuring the game does not inject or remove money in each trade, that is guaranteed. But such a move would be a disaster. A most complete threat to the stability of the markets.
There are more gentle solutions, easier solutions, better solutions.
Instead of decreasing the amount if cash that is added to the market to near 0, I would... do nothing. With cuts from losses, cost of war and financial services, a very good, meticulous and excessive work to reduce game cash throughout the game has already been executed. But if it was still something that had to be done, I would augment the ways that there are to remove cash from the game or even create some. But I fail to see the point of explaining which ways are those exactly, when the game is already compensating the lack of cash in the game through the World Bank.
And all of this begs the question: why is there such an unwavering will to reduce game cash?
If the answer is realism, my reply will be "ceci n'est pas une pipe".
Nothing of this matters much to me, but the mistakes are so crass, so obvious and so insulting I find them calling for my despise. I have doubt, however. I am uncertain of what is more crass, more obvious or more insulting: if the mistakes themselves or the continuous persistence in following the mistakes. |
| Karff (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 04:15 pm
"And no. Players buy at 100Q to avoid the whims of market fluctuations. "
From what I understand people by at 100Q because they don't know of any reason to buy at higher quality |
| John R | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 04:21 pm
From what you know, other players told you to set to 100, from what they learnt from me and my peers.
The smaller the quality, the smaller the differences in fluctuation, the smaller the risk, the greater the stability.
For the goods that aren't consumed by the population, for those there is no gain when used, there is no reason, excluding weapons now. But there is still reason when you plan to sell them. |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 05:02 pm
"Yes. The population buys the products adjusted to the current market price and quality.
And no. Players buy at 100Q to avoid the whims of market fluctuations.
What there is no way of knowing is if the population is buying what it can afford. They always buy and pay correctly, even if they possibly don't own enough money."
It would still be nice if we could have logs for the prices countries pay for product automatically ordered, and the prices paid by the population for product used, so that we could verify this for ourselves |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 06:42 pm
I buy at 100Q for country, because if you buy higher quality, it shows up as higher amounts on your financial statement. Your profit/loss, the loss part of this WILL increase. I did a thorough testing of this.
This means, your finance index WILL go down.
There is NO reason to buy over 100Q for countries at this time.
Contracts:
If I have a contract selling 333 quality of let's say Services. I'm selling these Services to a FMU corporation. These services, SHOULD be sold for 333% of the market price. In reality, they are being sold for about 290-297% of the market price.
Does this make more sense Tom? It is the same thing with ANY quality above about 296 or so. Quality above 296 has some kind of bug. This is what I and others have been trying to explain for quite awhile. And its not just the quality. Its the whole pricing scheme above about 297-298. Nothing will sell above that range, period. Regardless of demand, buyer price, immediate buy, whatever parameters you set. This does NOT change. It cannot be done. This was not the case about 2 months ago. It is the case now, and has been for about 2 months (or close to). Regardless of how you set things up, NOTHING can be sold above about 297% of the market price. Absolutely nothing. This is the same on ALL worlds, all types of corporations, all types of selling/buying.
Q |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 06:48 pm
Quote from Tom:
I think that the best way will be to set up a default that will average the quality of offers and requests and make a trade at the average price.
if you do not want this to take place, you should have the option to enforce the price you requested and rather have no deal at all than one at a lower price.
This can sometimes deliver more money but also, many times, no money at all but it will not make you sell your products at a lower price than you want for them.
-----------------------
For this proposal, I suggest letting the selling have the option of lowering his price by a set % each month.
Quote from Tom:
We will look at the options of how to deal with the unsold products:
1. Take them from the market at a very low price after 3 months. (10% of value?)
2. Cancel the old offers and the products will remain with the corporation. It can re-offer them and they will be sold or not. etc.
---------------------
For #1, I suggest increasing it to at least 6 months.
How exactly does immediate buy work? From my previous understanding, immediate buy takes the highest offer available and gives it to you at that price. Basically seller sets the price? With immediate sell working the opposite way?
Q |
| coolwind (Golden Rainbow) | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 07:20 pm
we are all wasting our time......it's a language problem! |
| Tom Willard (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 10:04 pm
The discussion is diverging to many other interesting issues.
The only point I brought here is:
we are not adding money to the system by paying for products. The buyer is paying for the products.
This is what I mean by the closed system.
We do not add money and we do not take money out.
there are a few exceptions and I mentioned some.
A lot of money is produced in simcountry all the time.
The production process in corporations creates value.
All these arguments cannot replace this simple fact:
If you want to sell a product, the buyer has to pay for it.
You get whatever you agree with the buyer. if there is no agreement with a buyer there is no deal.
You can run circles around this and discuss every detail of simcountry and be in favour or find many errors that might be there. All true.
However, you cannot convince me that if you want to sell a product and you do not find anyone who wants to pay the price you ask for, that I should pay the difference.
This is explained several times in the past days.
We will think of adding a trading feature:
You can choose to insist on your price and get it or, if there is no exact quality match, not sell at all. After some time, the offer to sell will be withdrawn autmatically.
Or, the default choice:
The trader will find the best quality match, exactly as it does now, and trade, using the average of the requested and offered quality.
you will be able to make a choice.
The default will be the choice to average and make the sale.
We will try to add this feature ASAP.
This is a great solution because you will be able to insist on your price and you can refuse to sell at any other price. |
| Tom Willard (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 10:15 pm
The bug:
If we see a contract for a price x that sell under that price, we will fix it. this is an error.
The averaging in partially in place now, C3s are not paying whatever is asked but less. this has a depressing effect on the prices.
The top of 297 seems high. If C3s are requesting at 100, I would have expected the deal price to be even lower.
When we implement this feature, there will be some exceptions at a very high price. most deals will be at a lower price because in general, requested quality is on average lower than offered quality.
When it is implemented and you offered a product of Q350 and received payment at 290 it means that the match was a requested quality of 230.
You can also have quality 350 and request 400. that will reduce your sale probability even much further. |
| John R | Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 10:37 pm
I can and will.
I am not speaking of product or production or value or assets. I am speaking of cash. Of money. Of currency. Of liquidity. Of monetary mass. Of unit of measurement. Of means of exchange. Of storage of value.
Currency is created when you sell GCs to the GM, when the game compensates the difference in trading, when the game adjusts cash levels in C3s, when the World Bank issues loans. Currency is deleted when you buy GCs from the GM, when the game compensates the difference in trading, when it adjusts cash levels in C3s, when financial services are charged, when interest is paid to the world bank and when a country or an enterprise are deregistered.
Are you telling me that from now, the main source for currency creation will be selling GCs to the GM? I am sure this is not your objective, but that will be what will happen. I wonder if that will compensate for all the currency that will be eventually removed. I know what will happen if it doesn't.
A buyer already pays what he buys. A seller already receives what he sells (or he used to). This, in monetary terms, is unquestionable. The balance may not be 0, but both pay what they should. What you are doing now is forcing that the products match, so the balance payment approaches 0. That is a mistake. It has mistake written all over it.
What we will have will be something like a river drying out and the same amount of water being consumed. Eventually, they will thirst.
I have the sensation you think monetary mass will grow/decrease and stop on what financial services are determined. I don't think so. I think it will just keep on decreasing and go way below the mark of financial services. And even if you are right, I consider the amount of cash that will be stored insufficient. |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 12:16 am
I just hope I can wring out level 6 before everything crashes. |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 01:02 am
Ordered Q at 100...
Q on market at 333...
Market collapse.
That simple.
The only way for corporations to lower quality to match the demand is to order supplies at very low quality like Q100. Even then, a CEO can only lower to Q225...and get paid for only Q160ish. Turning off upgrades will make the corporations completely unprofitable.
Which, in turn, increases demand for low quality even more.
It is untenable for a corporation to produce 300 quality product and only be paid for 200 because of an "average." The corporation is paying far more in supplies than it should.
The advantage of having public or private corps over state corps is drastically reduced in the race to the bottom. It is easier to contain costs in state corps due to the lack of "country resources used" expense.
You MUST give countries a damn good reason to order goods at high quality if you have any chance at making this work. A very good reason. It is up to you to give us reason to create demand for high quality products so that supply is closer to demand and this fiat "averaging" becomes unnecessary.
And if you want to keep your customers, those reasons should come in the form of carrots, not sticks. |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 01:36 am
Alternatively, quality could be removed entirely. It is my understanding that once upon a time corps were more concerned with production than quality that didn't exist yet, yes? |
| Zdeněk Pavlovský | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 05:46 am
Quote:However, you cannot convince me that if you want to sell a product and you do not find anyone who wants to pay the price you ask for, that I should pay the difference.
The problem is that it's YOU who determines what computer controlled countries and corporations wants to buy.
Quote:All these arguments cannot replace this simple fact:
If you want to sell a product, the buyer has to pay for it.
You get whatever you agree with the buyer. if there is no agreement with a buyer there is no deal.
If players decide not sell their product, thus create shortages, what will YOU do? YOU will add products and service the to market to compensate, to prevent it from collapsing.
How dare you talk about closed system? When Russia stopped delivering their Gas to Europe few weeks ago, there was no magical YOU suddenly pulling millions of cubic meters of Gas out of nowhere pumping them into the system in order to .. make the market.
As it was said before, when there is shortage computer controlled entities, and anyone else for that matter, has to pay whatever price at whatever quality, within the hard parameters for pricing set by YOU, is asked, if the system is to work.
Stop adding non-existing products and services to the market, and I'm pretty sure it will not be that hard to convince the few and very powerful producers of goods and services in this game to withhold their production until they will get what they want. This is not real world, real economy, where there are thousands of sellers. Very few players have so much influence that if they decided to make YOUR imaginary closed system to collapse, they could do it with few clicks. Of course YOU will not let this happen, YOU will determine what price they can ask for their products by setting hard caps for pricing, by adding non existing goods to the market, and now even by enforced deals between sellers and buyers.
Out of curiosity, how come the system YOU invented and presented to us as realistic simulator, could work for 7 years and now YOU refuse to pay for the difference? What is YOUR exact problem with paying the difference? YOUR closed system argument does not hold water, because the game never was, and with the ability to inject in-game cash through the Cash Market into the system from outside, never will be anything close to the imaginary closed system YOU like to use as the irrefutable argument in this debate.
Why should YOU not pay the difference? It certainly does not bother those who play this .. game.
Tell me why? |
| Petra Arkanian (Little Upsilon) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 06:16 am
Tom, players have been asking for higher Q goods to work as a way to order less supplies.
Can we apply this principle in reverse for C3 purchases?
What I mean is this: If C3s are ordering 100Q goods, and I am producing 296, 333, etc Q goods, instead of averaging the prices, why don't I get paid for the 333Q, and my goods morph into the equivalent 100Q goods
-THIS IS DIFFERENT THAN SUBSIDIES, or the GM paying the difference. The system remains closed, but the higher Q good simply goes further...
If I am ordering 190Q goods for my own corps, and 333Q is being placed on the market by someone else, when I buy their goods, I pay for a 333Q good, but the 333Q morphs into an equivalent number of 190Q. C3s would have the 333Q morph into the equivalent number of 100Q...
This is basically the request that higher Q goods go farther than low Q good, but applied in reverse. We should be able to sell at whatever quality, and also buy from people at whatever quality, and then turn the higher Q goods into the goods we need, at a number equivalent to the value of the higher Q.
Or this idea could be horseshit because I'm so utterly exhausted, but I think it would be the easiest to implement and serves the same purpose as buying higher Q and needing less supplies. Well, you buy the higher Q, so yes you're buying "less," but instead of one 333Q good, you get three 100Q goods... or however the multiplier works. |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 11:03 am
"Out of curiosity, how come the system YOU invented and presented to us as realistic simulator, could work for 7 years and now YOU refuse to pay for the difference? What is YOUR exact problem with paying the difference? YOUR closed system argument does not hold water, because the game never was, and with the ability to inject in-game cash through the Cash Market into the system from outside, never will be anything close to the imaginary closed system YOU like to use as the irrefutable argument in this debate.
Why should YOU not pay the difference? It certainly does not bother those who play this .. game."
Of course, we all know the answer is the Cash Market. Due to the cashout, the GM has a financial interest in not paying. There is no other reason that makes sense.
But we all know Tom will deny this to high heaven... |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 11:10 am
@ Petra's suggestion: Easiest and fairest multiplier would be (sold quality/ordered quality).
So 333/190=somewhere around 1.75
if I ordered 100 quality=333/100=3.33
and if I sold 100 quality to someone ordering 190, 100/190=0.53
and so on.
Easy system in which high-quality goods are WORTH more. Period.
I would support that as a mechanism to reconcile demand for moderate to low quality with supply of high quality. It is akin to dilution IRL...we still pay for the high quality price, but we dilute it to make it last longer. |
| FarmerBob | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 02:15 pm
After reading all the replies and most carefully parsing Tom's comments, I believe I grasp the problem.
Many of us, myself included, have been looking at SC's macroeconomy through the filter of capitalist, free market economic principles. This is in error, a false premise.
The SimEconomy is a command economy with some trappings of free markets. The costs of production, supply and demand levels, and most importantly prices are determined by central planning.
Therefore, when we discuss "The Market", we unconsciously add the word "Free" in front of it with all that it falsely implies. There are other forms of markets and economic systems. We simply are not educated in their mechanics nor culturally conditioned to think in their terms.
Tom is referring to markets and buying and selling within the context of SC's command economy, the mechanics by which transactions are processed. The rules that apply in that context are not the classical Laws of Supply and Demand to determine pricing and "who gets what" with which we are all familiar and conditioned to. We think in terms of positive utility that justifies paying higher prices for some real or perceived advantage. That is not the case in Marxist economic theory.
Our economies are consumer driven, with supply nearly always "green", satisfying immediate demand. In Marxist economies, supply is nearly always red, ensuring that there is no overproduction. With fixed pricing, the consumer may wait for demand to be satisfied, but the price will be the same.
SimCountry uses a hybrid approach the retains the central control of command economics but allows for some fluctuations based on buying/selling strategies. The Supply and Demand curves are not reconciling production and demand to arrive at price as we are accustomed to, but within the SimEconomy reconcile quality and asking price to arrive at a negotiated quality/ price compromise. This is the "averaging" of which Tom speaks. This is why our products continue to sell, despite the difference between requested and produced quality. So, Tom is not dissembling when he describes how the SimMarket is functioning. It simply a matter of two different systems using the same terms and language.
One must remember that in any command economy, the imperatives and priorities of the central planners will take precendence over the desires of suppliers or consumers. The central planner endeavours to oversee and control the distribution of goods and services while retaining control of the overall supply and prices. This W3C does.
Their priorities are to maintain a somewhat stable exchange that avoids an untimely degree of shortage, ensures a measure of profitabilty for producers, and requires minimal direct intervention. How this is accomplished is through their own system, however. Attempting to apply conventional economic thinking to this system is pointless. It has its own rules.
To be fair, it does accomplish what a completely free market system would not within the game.
We have stable prices and profits and are rarely plagued by unfillable shortages.
A completely free market system as utilized in other games like the WarCraft Auction House would result in supply attempting to meet immediate demand which would be disastrous for this system. Laguna is perfectly correct to point out that "green" markets are to avoided at all costs. Overproduction or even insufficiently "red" markets would strangle our ability to sell at any price quite quickly.
In conclusion, we must simply accept that our central planners are intent upon reducing the monetary mass within the SimEconomy, scaling back every aspect of the game, and will likely use the tools of negative utility(something is useful because it mitigates or negates negative consequences) to do so.
We must trust that some degree of profitability, perhaps not as much as we might like, will be maintained, but be prepared for W3C to continually go too far in adjustments that require other adjustments to offset.
This is going to be a painful, messy process.
We can only hope the ends are worth the means. |
| Zdeněk Pavlovský (Fearless Blue) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 03:22 pm
Of course we must accept the dictate, and these debates over game mechanics are just rhetorical exercises.
What we should, actually what W3C should, really debate or ask is:
What is good and bad game design?
Where good game design is such design which is able to draw in enough players who will, through paying for the game, allow the game designers and game owners to get paid for the service they provide and make a profit on top of that.
Not to scam enough players who will dump their money into the game, and when they'll find out what is really going on they will leave. We all seen that happened many times, and that is why the game more or less stagnates over the years instead of growing.
What we should, actually what W3C should, really debate or ask is:
What can we do, what kind of features and improvements can we make, to gain more players or to make current players happier?
And we end up with what?
I do not want to pay you vs I want you to pay me!
This is just .. sad. |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 05:23 pm
I wonder what would happen if there were no willing sellers under Tom's scheme.
If the owners of large enterprises "struck" and refused to sell product until sellers are paid for the quality of produce.
A market cannot function without sellers, no matter what kind of market it is.
If Tom will not listen, perhaps it is time for me to explore the possibility of organizing enterprises in a sellers' strike. |
| ShcyzMattiCa (Fearless Blue) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 05:40 pm
If I may say something. . .
We are all so . . . %#%#&
LoL no really we are.
No naval war = no fun
No profit = no fun
no fun = no money for w3c
By all means I am a fighter and will not quit until I see the results of such changes make this game unplayable.
But so far, from what i have seen, Given recent game changes or a combination of them have made things really impossible.
For example. . . Worker issues.
As easily as the problem was created, it could be wriiten into the programming and fixed.
Why it has not, eludes me. But to alot of people here it is quite obvious. We are getting jerked off(excuse my vulgarity).
Another example
While it is quite possible to fight naval and longer distance wars then border to border conflicts, naval changes have severely hampered this part of the game. 400 nfps has to overcome all kinds of def batts to eventually and effectively hit targets.
This alone is not a deterrence to naval battles. But consider that ammo will reduce in quality and quantity. It takes an astronomical amount of time to build up the ammo needed to take a well defended country. NFP missiles are quite expensive as well. Now you still have to get several other categories of weapon ammo to be say "ready" to attempt a battle.
No matter which way you do it ammo first or weapons first, it will be highly expensive to play the war game. We know its smarter to get ammo first, but now it will disappear while you wait for weapons. This is crazy.
As an example
I recently with the utmost futility fought a war with Laguna on FB I went through 15K nfps and 800K missiles in about 15 rl minutes of fighting. I was attacking the lightest defended target and still lost astronomical amounts of weapons and ammo.
This is rediculous, I "MIGHT" have moved his index a point or two, IF THAT
In response Croseus was attacking my country. I will readily admit that I neglected defense and had about 40 int wings up and NO DEF batts OR TANKS OR ART and NO GARRISONS. It seriously took him 8 hours to take that country.
That is rediculous.
Nothing about either side of those battles is realistic.
If I had 15K planes to send at a defense knowing the defender has thousands of batts and interceptors, why in the heck would I only send 400 at a time to get slaughtered. There is nothing close to realistic about that.
If I have no land defense, and only a small air defense, why would it take a superior force all that time to conquer a relatively defenseless nation? There is nothing realistic about that either.
This game is marketed and advertised as a realistic economic and war simulation game. I can see recent changes to both sides of the game that have destroyed either side. You cannot war unless you wanna pay an astronomical amount of money on all things necessary to have a meaningful war. You cannot fall back to the economic side because there are changes here to go against this as well.
Especially worker and population issues.
Why does a country of 40 to 60 mil gain pop and continue gaining? Simple answer : Because you want it to. You program them to.
Why does a country of 80 to one hundred mil lose pop? Simple answer: because you want them to, you programmed them to.
If a country half my size gains pop with a modest health index, a country twice the size of that one with a high health index and cost, should gain about the same or really in all seriousness gain double. The fact that it doesn't is BS. Its written that way. Why isn't w3c cap;ping pop limits so people aren't buying pop and fruitlessly converting workers every month. I have two twenty mil pop countries that i have been transferring workers out of to keep up on this. Some months I bring in as many as 70 - 80K high level workers and 150 - 200K medium level workers on top of the 50K i can change from nurses to high level workers. Only to log off for tw game months ( overnight ), then log on to find that 65% of the MLW have disappeared and HLW vanished and only have about 20 K with a shortage of 50K. In only two months where did they go?? I understand that they only return to work at 10
5 at a time per game month, but where did the remaining workers go???? I was also under the impression that nurses are relatively young part of the work force. So given the fact that i have been converting them for over a real month shouldn't the age of these nurses being converted slow the rate of shortages in the HLW dept? If they are retirng and/or dying, yet i replace them every month with fresh young workers, what gives??? Why are they disappearing so fast?
Its stuff like this that makes everything meaningless. IMO
I really just wanted to say the first and second line of this post. I am not sure how I got to rambling on about all this. OOOPS. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 08:30 pm
Tom, I don't see why your averaging of quality and price can't be tilted toward whether a product is in high supply or high demand.
If a product is in high demand, the buyer should pay more, the seller get more.
If a product is in high supply, the buyer should pay less, the seller get less.
For something like ammo, I should be able to get a higher price than say coffee. Very high demand item, vs. an item in high supply.
Maybe another solution, on top of what you're suggesting, is to let the top price float a little higher? You have 0.3 on the low end, and 1.8 on the high end. I think the high end should be changed to say 2.25 or even 2.7. 0.3 is less than 1/3 of market price, while 1.8 is not even double. If you raise the ceiling some, it would allow for more profitability on the products which are in high demand. This would in turn, cause players to build more of these corporations, hoping for a greater return. This would then improve the balance of supply/demand for these corporations over time.
Your problem with the simple averaging of quality, is you are making UPGRADES useless. You are making HIGH QUALITY useless. It is unintentionally tanking profitability of corporations. Further changes in this regard will only serve to hurt profitability even more. I don't even recommend to most players to even make truly public corporations anymore, as they are next to worthless except in your own countries, and even there, the extra value is marginal at best.
Make HIGH quality useful, somehow, someway. Otherwise, your implementation of this averaging stuff in full, will TANK the profits of everyone, based on how corporations are set up, and how quality works currently.
We the players, play your game, and are able to do MUCH more testing as a whole, because there is so much more data for us to work with as a whole. Look at some regular countries, look at how they are set up. I don't think any of us are trying to take advantage of what you're trying to propose, we're just trying to protect the viability of this game. Profits will continue to sink with your changes, and maybe then, when finally no one is profitable, you will see that you guys made mistakes, when its far too late to fix. Your customer base gone. NO ONE wants to play a game where they can't succeed. That's the route you're going down.
Q |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 08:32 pm
I agree with Shcyzmattica on the worker issues. Its getting quite ridiculous and absurd. Your latest change made things WORSE for MLW/HLW.
Q |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 08:37 pm
Tom, another simple solution until you get to the bigger ones.
Change the C3 demand from 100 to 190 for its corporations. As 190 is optimal, they should be ordering optimal? I remember you guys saying that it would be raised from 100 to 150, but you're saying its still 100.
Is your goal honestly just to MAKE SURE profits go down to 0 over time?
Look at your # of Enterprises. They are WAY down from what they used to be. This is the part of the game which is suffering the most.
Q |
| coolwind (Golden Rainbow) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 08:52 pm
I think I love ya Wendy!!LOL that saved me a lot of typing!!
All the MLW and HLW must go on permanent Holiday!!
I know they don't die! At least the SC figures tell me that1 |
| coolwind (Golden Rainbow) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 08:53 pm
is the game for sale yet? |
| John R | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 09:16 pm
Show a little more respect, coolwind. If your contribution isn't even disguised as constructive, don't bother. |
| coolwind (Golden Rainbow) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 09:27 pm
I apologise John. A light-hearted comment misplaced. |
| Stuart Taylor (Little Upsilon) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 10:35 pm
Now, 200 interceptors just wiped the floor with my 1000 fighter planes when taking a C3......
The drones in the same unit took no losses though, but still, what next? Tanks that can't attack a jeep??? |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 10:42 pm
OMG.
I think Tom has managed to unite me, Wendy and Stu in the common cause of universal objection to GM taking a wrecking ball to gameplay.
My, has hell frozen over. |
| Stuart Taylor (Little Upsilon) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 10:55 pm
I never thought I would be agreeing with Wendy, and i'm sorry, but this sucks.
1000 fighters lost trying to take out a C3 air def unit? Man..... |
| Beast (Little Upsilon) | Friday, February 13, 2009 - 11:47 pm
*sigh*
guess I may as well sell the guns for gold coins and stay in war protection. what an exhilarating existence!
@ Tom
I really enjoy this game, but I have never before these last few weeks seen more than one or two experienced players upset about something somewhat small. Now, most of my peers as well as players who have considerable experience are becoming increasingly frustrated, and many are leaving. I honestly didn't think I'd ever see myself saying this, but I don't know if I will continue to extend my countries. If I can't make money and I can't really fight, whats the point in having the countries? |
| John R | Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 01:27 am
Contemplate the first causality of this change:
Shortage
Thu Mar 3, 2377 The citizens of Lance of Longinus are complaining of shortages. There is a shortage of Coffee.
Coffee shortage. My sims no longer have the hype to endure such hardships. |
| Stuart Taylor (Little Upsilon) | Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 01:35 am
And I want to know whats going on here;
Facilities Demolished
Thu Mar 3, 2377 Due to a lack of Senior Doctors, Etruria was unable to maintain its Hospitals. Their number has been reduced from 1081 to 1080 hospitals.
I have a load of them unemployed, so many that I can even build more hospitals. |
| caseysf1095 (White Giant) | Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 06:54 am
As mentioned in this thread and in several others, the game mechanics for product quality are funny. It is especially painful when applied to the common markets. For the first two months of playing this game, I had a self-sufficient country, using local markets for over 95% of my imports. That was a big mistake because my state corps were buying from each other at Q296, and half my corps were losing money. I had to cancel all my common market imports as well, as I was buying supplies at Q360. My country was burning through Q296 water maintenance units, and training soldiers with Q296 missiles. The higher my common market score climbed, peaking in the mid 800's, the lower my financial index fell. There is no logic in this system, as my attempts at employing the common market system to achieve self-sufficiency become counterproductive and ultimately detrimental toward my balance sheet.
"If C3s are ordering 100Q goods, and I am producing 296, 333, etc Q goods, instead of averaging the prices, why don't I get paid for the 333Q, and my goods morph into the equivalent 100Q goods "
I think some of the ideas mentioned in this thread may actually work, but what about Q368 production plants, roads, and maintenance units? Would selling one Q368 government facility equal 3.6 Q100 facilities? Did someone mention that perhaps individual production plants can decrease in quality each month, and need to be repurchased when the quality hits 0?
"When it is implemented and you offered a product of Q350 and received payment at 290 it means that the match was a requested quality of 230. "
I don't see the logic in averaging the proposed sale price and the proposed buy price. We're not bargaining at the flea market. You say $10, I say $2 and we settle for $6. I get a $10 product for 6 bucks, sweet! Except that next time, nobody will make the $10 product anymore because the cost of the extra quality is not recovered. So he'll start making $6 products, and of course I'll bid $2, so we average out at $4, which causes the seller to reduce quality again next time, etc, etc. The averaging system only works if there is more utility in a $10 product than for a $2 product or if corporations with Q100 products were inherently profitable anyway, then corps wouldn't mind averaging system as much, as anything over Q100 would be extra income anyway.
Furthermore, if we start averaging, then astute players will automatically overinflate their prices to compensate for the averaging effect, to the effect of pricing a Q350 product at 600 prices to maintain their current level of profitability. The end result is no loss for a few, and bankruptcies for many others, especially those CEOs and Presidents who don't want to purchase Q350 government facilities and Q333 factory maintenance units.
Whatever, I'm just a rambling noob anyway. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 07:43 am
Tom, your AVERAGING in reality does NOT HAPPEN!
Quality 370 product:
If I sell at 300, 330, 370, or 400, I get the SAME PRICE RANGE in the end. You know what it is? 290-297!
Quality 333 product:
If I sell at 300, 333, or 360, I get the SAME PRICE RANGE in the end. You know what it is? 290-297!
You know what the ONLY difference is in these situations? The 400% for the 370, and the 360% for the 333, take a month or two to sell all the product. The rest sell same month. Result ends up being the SAME. There is NO AVERAGING.
Tom, would you like for me to post DOZENS of mathematical examples of this phenomenon? Better yet, would you prefer a few HUNDRED to better get the point across?
And I will reiterate once again, as you don't seem to get it. CONTRACTS ARE HAVING THE SAME PROBLEMS. Contracts above about 296 quality or so DON'T WORK, they only give you about 296.
Admit to the populace of the game, that you have a PRICE CAP in place, and get it over with.
I can provide for you hundreds upon hundreds of examples of this being reality. Unfortunately, I don't desire to flood the forum doing so, or wasting a few hours of my time doing so.
You are purposely deceiving everyone as to reality. How many more times do I have to explain what is really happening for you to understand it or get it?
MANY other players can attest to the exact same results. So would you prefer THOUSANDS of combined examples then? Would this maybe prove the point?
Remove the price cap on goods, let the market control the prices as before. The C3's have nothing to do with it, we both know this. The price cap is there to REDUCE cash levels. Period. |
| Alexiel iki-ryo (Fearless Blue) | Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 07:51 am
People ought to listen to Quaxocal there a bit more. (people = w3c). :3 |
| coolwind (Golden Rainbow) | Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 08:39 pm
I honestly cannot believe that a business in this line of work takes no cogniscance of customer complaints, and most of them should be easy to fix.
The simplest point has not been answered even yet:-
If a corp sells ALL the product in the game month at the asking price 333 then why doesn't the dollar revenue match up with these sales?
All I've seen from the GMs is incomprehensible, evasive waffle. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 09:41 pm
Maybe Tom should explain how C3's MAGICALLY produce 185 quality product out of 100 quality corporations/100 quality supplies? |
| Petra Arkanian (Little Upsilon) | Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 09:59 pm
Yeah, man, what the hell?! I want a magic +85 to my corps' quality!
Welcome to "The Kingdom of Soreno"
President: No President
Presidency start date: -
World: Little Upsilon
Continent: Hercula Major
Region: Vanguard
Bokarra Boats
Product: Boats
Latest Market Price: Click to see history 558,611 SC$ per boat
Corporation Type: state corporation
Founded: April 6 2376
Total Number of Shares Outstanding: 100 Million
Shares you own: 0
Percentage of Shares owned: 0.0%
Estimated Market Value in Gold Coins: 0.02 GC
Located in: The Kingdom of Soreno
Controlled by: The Kingdom of Soreno
Public Offering: perform a Public Offering
General Data
Products Sold Current Month 1,960.16M SC$
Cash Available Now 47,249.90M SC$ Click to see history
Products Sold Last Year 17,096.05M SC$
Profit Last Year 10,707.48M SC$
Net Profit Last Year 5,613.28M SC$
Products Sold Last Month 1,982.37M SC$ Click to see history
Profit Last Month 1,267.51M SC$ Click to see history
Net Profit Last Month 665.44M SC$ Click to see history
Assets 56,864.68M SC$ Click to see history
Market Value 10,682.54M SC$ Click to see history
Outstanding Loans 0.00M SC$ Click to see history
Value of Supplies 2,958.42M SC$ Click to see history
Production Last Month 1,760 Click to see history
Production Level Last Month 100.50 % Click to see history
Employment Level Last Month 100.00 % Click to see history
Production Process Quality 100 Click to see history
Quality of the Product 185.0 Click to see history
Production Process Effectivity 100 Click to see history
Welfare Index 100.5 Click to see history
Available Materials and Contracted Services
Product Stock (Unit) Monthly Use Stock Months Avg. Quality Last Price Paid Market Price
Aluminum 221,866 tons 20,000 11.1 100 978 SC$ 833 SC$
Chemicals 310,720 tons 30,000 10.4 100 1,184 SC$ 971 SC$
Computers 49,079 systems 5,000 9.8 100 1,013 SC$ 859 SC$
Electric Power 4,376 million kwhs 375 11.7 103 83,859 SC$ 74,464 SC$
Electronic Components 2,814,096 units 275,000 10.2 100 423 SC$ 361 SC$
Factory Maintenance Units 23 units 3 7.7 101 3.02M SC$ 2.50M SC$
High Tech Services 1,293,844 units 75,000 17.3 104 323 SC$ 302 SC$
Plastics 293,715 tons 25,000 11.7 101 432 SC$ 357 SC$
Services 1,676,641 units 150,000 11.2 100 345 SC$ 324 SC$
Steel 81,192 tons 7,500 10.8 100 1,020 SC$ 977 SC$ |
| Nute Gunray (Little Upsilon) | Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 10:24 pm
I would like to ask Mr. quaxocal of Golden Rainbow to post some of his calculations so that all can see the math and the data. I ran acouple of calculations and I was shocked that the game has miscacluated my profit.
more to come. I just want to chack my math and run it past my accountant.
Nute Gunray |
| Petra Arkanian (Fearless Blue) | Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 10:33 pm
@Nute, just click on any corps in a C3 to see the most recent thing Quaxocal posted. Or refer to my above post where I did a copy-pasta of the relevent info from a C3 corp. Just, checking a C3 might be easier since it's nice and organized and formatted. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 10:38 pm
I have posted some of my calculations and math and data in another thread in this forum.
Only a few people were taking me seriously at that time, so the thread died.
Tom, and others at W3C, your credibility is sinking faster and faster with the more we players are discovering on our own. And I am confident that we will continue to discover more ways in which you guys are BLANTANTLY LYING to the players who are PAYING YOU REAL LIFE MONEY to play this game.
Petra posted a C3 for all to see, how the 185 magic quality works. If that C3 was owned by a player, it would be 100 quality.
You complain C3's weren't making profits, so instead of fixing game mechanics, you CHEAT, yes CHEAT, to ensure they make a profit. Because if you did NOT cheat, they would not make anything.
Oh, forgot to add. C3's also get a 7.5 BILLION income booster each month too!
Way to go Tom, way to go.
Nute: I'm sure your math is correct, as I have had at least a dozen veterans who have been playing ALOT longer than me, confirm my findings on the price cap problem, including Treasurer and Laguna.
Q |
| Petra Arkanian (Fearless Blue) | Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 10:47 pm
Tuco pointed out in IRC that it is probably of no consequence to the GM whether or not C3s actually make money.
However, my objection is that we are allegedly being forced to accept an 'averaged' price on our high quality goods, which loses us money by catering to the demand for lower quality.
However, C3s are magically producing 185Q products, so when a player buys from a C3 - 1. There is little or no averaging, if said player purchases at 190 quality, 2. said player has to pay the average if buying 100Q supplies.
So, players are forced to take cuts when we sell out products, yet C3s are allowed to sell at price, with magic quality bonuses and make more money? Or again, suppose someone buys at 100Q, the C3s are producing 185Q products from 100Q conditions, and an 'averaging' down for them still yields a magically provided quality bonus. |
| The Crafty Cockney (Kebir Blue) | Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 11:17 pm
And if you think about the percentage of product on the market that is C3 made, thats one big bucket of our cash. |
| Nute Gunray (Golden Rainbow) | Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 11:20 pm
My review of Recent Sales by wccpu 0003, which is a CEO controled private corporation that makes computers, revealed to me that these players seem to have a valid arguement. The game is not properly compensating the corporations for the products sold.
base price of Quality 100 = 859 SC $
Product Quality is 328
998 systems were sold on LU via a common market contract on the LU world date Sep 03, 2377 the price received was 2,527 SC$.
Now for the math:
I believe the forumala should be: Base price X Qualilty of product expressed in a precentage of 328% = Price received
Thus 859 SC$ (base price) X 328% (Quality of Product) = 2817.52 SC$
However the recent sales data shows that the corporation only received 2,527 SC$
THIS IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE
So to work this out I would use the forumla but now the unknown is the amount the price was increased due to quality upgrades.
Thus 859 SC$ (base price) X Q% (Quality of Product) = 2,527 SC$.
Q% = 2527 / 859
Q% = 294%
My conclusion is that while my company should have been paid 2,817 SC$ per system the market made it only get paid 2527 SC$ per system.
The difference is 290.52 SC $ per system. Wow if I was to try that at the local store they would laugh and say come back when you have all the cash.
Now on this sale date that happened with 998 systems for a shortage in my profits of 289,983.96 SC$.
One final thought - I realize that in the real world companies do offer discounts for buyers who are buying a large volume of products. However if this is what simcountry is trying to do then the CEOs and Presidents should have the option of offering such discounts. This is just an example of one corporation. I am sure like Mr quaxocal of Golden Rainbow said we could all list countless examples here on this froum.
Greetings to Petra Arkanian of Fearless Blue. Perhaps it is time for drastic measure on the part of the Presidents. I have a few ideas how to correct the C3 corps magic. But I think it would be far better if Mr. Jozi, Mr Tom Willard and their team sets it back up to where we can at least make a few SC$ without all the trouble. I mean after all would anyone want to play monoply if the rules were changed to decrease the cash. I sure would not. the only reason I like to play monoply is to try to get the most cash.
Pull me back together
Or seperate the skin from the bone
Leave me all the Pieces, and then you can leave me
alone
Tell me the reality is better than dream
But I found out the hard way,
Nothing is what it seems!
I push my fingers into my eyes
It's the only thing that slowly stops the ache
But it's made of all the thing I am today
Jesus, it never ends, it works it's way inside
If the pain goes on,
I'm not gonna make it!
Nute Gunray |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 02:59 am
Nute, I promise you that if you ran the same math for ANY private corporation above 300 or so quality, you will get a similar result.
There is a price cap in place, period. Its plainly obvious from all the data we have worked out. I really don't want to have to go through and post loads of examples to show W3C yet again that this is indeed true.
Q |
| Nute Gunray | Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 04:07 am
NUTE AMMO COMPANY Daily Telegraph, Oct 22, 2377
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enterprise News
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Teach Message
Thu Oct 19, 2377 Your corporations do not produce a profit. As a result, the enterprise is losing money instead of making some. Corporations make profits if they produce at full capacity and sell all their products. Make sure you increase production levels and hiring and mainly, make sure you sell the products in direct contracts or on the market. If there is a surplus of products on the market, you may decide to reduce your prices or increase your quality. If your products remain unsold, you will not be able to make a profit. You can make an automatic connection between the quality of your products and the price you sell them for. This will automatically update your pricing to the current quality of your products.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can make an automatic connection between the quality of your products and the price you sell them for. This will automatically update your pricing to the current quality of your products.
You can make an automatic connection between the quality of your products and the price you sell them for. This will automatically update your pricing to the current quality of your products.
You can make an automatic connection between the quality of your products and the price you sell them for. This will automatically update your pricing to the current quality of your products.
My quality is high but the profits are not increased to the right amount. I am forced to believe that the Daily Telegraph must be a from of propaganda. Is the Daily Telegraph trying to disseminate information aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of large numbers of people to make them think they will be paid the profits they deserve?
I think so. Meanwhile I bet someone is saying to themselves "Suckers"
Nute Gunray |
| John R | Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 05:47 am
Please leave this and other matters in my hands.
If you would like to add a comment or notify a new problem, please message me a text with details. I will see what I can do.
Laguna |
| jason (White Giant) | Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 06:13 am
Thanks LG, and good luck! |
| Beast (White Giant) | Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 06:57 am
Yes, hopefully it results in better than good luck, cuz I'm gettin tired of this.
Hope all goes well LG.
EO |
| Stuart Taylor (Little Upsilon) | Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 11:54 am
Good luck LG |
| Nute Gunray (Little Upsilon) | Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 04:46 pm
Thank you for taking on such a daunting endeavor Mr John R . I wish you great success. I believe if any player can effect change in this matter it is you. I just hope that it is not like the battles that Don Quixote de la Mancha had to wage.  Also I would be glad to sell you some computers at a discounted price but sadly to say I do not have an coffee corporations to help you out at present. I am ordering 3 new coffee corps in my ceo when these are built I shall send you some coffee so that your workers can be ready to produce the products.
The request to build a company that produces Coffee has been made.
The request to build a company that produces Coffee has been made.
The request to build a company that produces Coffee has been made.
10,000 thanks to you Mr. Laguna.
High Profits to all.
Nute Gunray |
| Zdeněk Pavlovský (Fearless Blue) | Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 05:24 pm
I shall rejoice also!
Thank you and best wishes with your quest! If there were not for people like you - educated, knowledgeable, experienced, honest, caring, selfless, unbiased and with a clear vision -, this game would be without hopes.
Lead the masses to better tomorrows! We know you can do and we trust you! Thank you Laguna, thank you!
tuco |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 08:55 pm
Good luck Laguna, hopefully you get better results with Tom and W3C than I did. If you need assistance feel free to ask me. If there's anyone in this game they might listen to, its you.
Q |
| Nute Gunray (Little Upsilon) | Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 09:15 pm
Good afternoon Mr. Laguna,
Just as promised I am sending some great tasting Colobian Coffee to aid your workers in this time of need. I will try to send more asap.
Direct Sale proposal created.
Direct Sales Proposal: Sell Coffee to Lance of Longinus 437,165 tons at 2,342 SC$ per ton.
Contract proposal created. Proposed Trade Contracts: Sell Coffee to Lance of Longinus 437,165 tons until canceled 2,342 SC$ per ton.
High Profits to all.
Nute Gunray |
| Kevin Henry (Little Upsilon) | Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 10:23 pm
Mr. Laguna,
I am also preparing an offer to aid your workers in this time of need.
Direct Sale proposal created.
Direct Sales Proposal: Sell monkeys who excel at synchronized swimming to Lance of Longinus 12 units at 15,342 SC$ per unit, plus cost of bananas. |
| Beast (Little Upsilon) | Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 11:12 pm
I feel like the Little Drummer Boy. I have nothing to offer Laguna compared to coffee and monkeys who excel at synchronized swimming.
Maybe I'll just send him a worker exchange offering him my last 2000 High level managers even though I somehow have a shortage of 37,000 high level managers.
I no longer have anything to offer. Thanks W3C! |
