Excelsior

Hey all.

Ive been here for some time now, 634 days to be exact. In this time i have acumulated somethings which i love and are proud of. With the exception of a few events, one of if not the only real way to measure our "worth" is house deco.

I spent millions and millions on my house in my time here. I have 3x3storyx18x18 house blocks together and took a whole bunch of time to deco it.

One of the things i spent time on was my zen garden/comtemplation room. One of the things i got for it was the well which is now available in the deco room for 2 mil. At the time it was unique and i paid somewhere in the vacintity of 20 mil. I think it is a little unfair that things that were a status symbol are now cheap and nasty things to get. If something is a unique auction item i think it should remain as so.

If nel or anarchy saw an ethe daemon statue for sale for 2 mil im sure they would be upset by this as well....

Anyway no big deal, just thought id voice My2c
Thewatcher

Aye that's fairly weak... Another smaller or different well would be ok... but not the exact same one that was auctioned for significantly more money....

I'm more of a dirt floor with stacks of chests on the walls sort of guy myself but I understand were you are coming from.

Sadly it always happens in MMOs. Reason being the majority of the people can't (rl schedules) or won't (don't care to put in the effort) obtain the "hard to get" stuff. Hard to get stuff could mean you have to defeat incredibly tough monsters to get it or gather a lot of currency to buy it. So inevitably to keep the majority happy these hard to obtain items are made easier and easier to obtain until the majority can get them there by making them no longer special.

I cannot count how many times this happened in wow, spending countless hours on the bleeding edge of progression raiding to down content. Getting the loot/titles/mounts to show your hard work, then a few months later having the content nerfed into the ground or the gear made available in some other way and seeing guys who you know for a fact couldn't down the first pull of a dungeon on launch week wearing the gear/title/mount that you put 50-100 pulls into in order to get.

But hey, just gotta accept the fact that games have to cater to the majority not the elite if they wish to maintain popularity.

I guess this is my long winded, jaded way of saying "I feel you!".

I was thinking about that the other day actually, but it was those lamp posts with the flowers, I remember Angel Eyes spending millions on those, and then they show up in the deco room. something like this would irritate me as well. My thoughts are, if its high end deco, keep it that way.

Yes I very much agree. I bought the white vanity in the deco room for 12 mil, which as anyone knows takes quite a bit of playtime to get, and now its in the deco room for 3 mil? I really do not see the fairness in this. When auctions come around I work VERY hard during the week to make enough gold to buy these "rare" deco items. Now when I look at my "rare" and very expensive deco I worked hard for, its a slap in the face. Why work so hard to make gold for auctions when theres a chance Im going to look like an idiot later for spending millions for a deco item everyone else gets at not even half price, but a quarter of the price? I really was disappointed at the gms for this. Before they start offering these items to the public I wish they would consider the feelings of the people they just sold these very expensive items to at the previous auction.

prices should only go up!! never down!!

it's hard work being one of the cool kids.

TheWatcher wrote: One of the things i spent time on was my zen garden/comtemplation room. One of the things i got for it was the well which is now available in the deco room for 2 mil. At the time it was unique and i paid somewhere in the vacintity of 20 mil. I think it is a little unfair that things that were a status symbol are now cheap and nasty things to get. If something is a unique auction item i think it should remain as so.

Do you begin to understand why Shard Admins should not be placing price tags on items? This occurs often around every online game primarily, in my opinion, people administrating the game has little to no understanding of economics.

Value, should only be placed on items by players. When Government, In Real Word, sets prices it undermines the value/prices people who gather these produce. Hence, undermining their efforts. Meaning, people will put forth less effort in gathering their produce.

Scarcity, should be, in part, by administrators, but never forced scarcity. This is because admins control spawns and their rates. When forcing a scarcity, people's labor is then undermined, just as forced price system does.

What happens though, is people want equality but does not have the enlightenment as how equality should be applied to be beneficial versus harmful. You can read every week on these forums how things must be more equal.

Trygg wrote:

TheWatcher wrote: One of the things i spent time on was my zen garden/comtemplation room. One of the things i got for it was the well which is now available in the deco room for 2 mil. At the time it was unique and i paid somewhere in the vacintity of 20 mil. I think it is a little unfair that things that were a status symbol are now cheap and nasty things to get. If something is a unique auction item i think it should remain as so.

Do you begin to understand why Shard Admins should not be placing price tags on items? This occurs often around every online game primarily, in my opinion, people administrating the game has little to no understanding of economics.

Value, should only be placed on items by players. When Government, In Real Word, sets prices it undermines the value/prices people who gather these produce. Hence, undermining their efforts. Meaning, people will put forth less effort in gathering their produce.

Scarcity, should be, in part, by administrators, but never forced scarcity. This is because admins control spawns and their rates. When forcing a scarcity, people's labor is then undermined, just as forced price system does.

What happens though, is people want equality but does not have the enlightenment as how equality should be applied to be beneficial versus harmful. You can read every week on these forums how things must be more equal.

I think the only issue is, Don't make an Auction item into a Deco Room item.

Melkor wrote: I think the only issue is, Don't make an Auction item into a Deco Room item.

Is it really the only issue? Or a symptom of a broader issue?

Point taken, and i would personally like to say how sorry i am to The Watcher for pushing so hard to get the Well that i made into the Deco room, i never ment for you to feel they way you feel about the item i worked so hard to make. i only wanted to make something that everyone could appreciate. i hope you can forgive me for this.

You know, you guys are absolutely right about these prices. I think im gonna go return all the stuff I have bought in RL from years ago and demand a refund because people can get it cheaper now. Im mean the nerve of these people lowering the prices of something I bought awhile ago. I worked hard to buy all those VHS tapes and now years later they are like a quarter of the price that I paid.

Well, i understand your message, and I'm sorry that it happened like this. When we sell items in auctions, we don't say that the item is completely one of a kind and will never be given out to anyone else, or to be always sold in auctions (asterisk, i remember it happened once but it was in error). Usually, when we have a cool new deco piece, we put it in an auction, both because it will sink a lot of gold, and also to see how very special it's seen as by the players.


Now, there are certain decorations that I really doubt will come into the decoration room. But many are not so very special, so we decided to put them in here. But keep in mind, we allowed for some time to pass from when the item was last sold at an auction. So it wouldn't be just, you buy it one day for 20 mil, and there it is the next day for 2 mil. The time frame for it to "cool down" is, i would say, at least a few months. The more the better. And during this cooldown time, you still get some extra worth: you're one of the only few who own it.

I looked into the specifics of the Well1 addon, i hope my records are complete, from what i can see we've sold 3 of them, two at 3 mil and one at 5.75 mil. And these prices are what we used to estimate an appropriate price for the well on the stone. We assumed that it should be listed for a little bit less than for what it was sold on the auctions.
The last auction they were sold was the Anniversary auction, January 31st 2010. And i see that the first well1 from the stone was bought on February 14th, 2011, so that's a bit more than 1 year cooldown here. It hasn't crossed my mind to consider the cooldown from player-to-player trading, but even then, that would be hard to track.

So well, just trying to explain that this issue has been taken into account.


Keep in mind that we are the "game masters" so we can do and change anything... of course, we want to make it fair for everyone, and that nobody feels left out or to think that they've been played. With thousands of different items, and probably also thousands of players that play here every year, it's quite a complex task



P.S.: Interesting story, a water house was once sold for 600k gold. And a stack of 10ED for 30k.

P.P.S.: On the subject of government (i presume that means us) makes prices fixed... First, this is not a regular economy in terms of money, it has to sink out. And second, I would love to make so that vendor prices would fluctuate depending on supply and demand. I bet beekeeping wouldn't be as profitable anymore

Edit: P.P.P.S.: If we make something cheaper, then it's those who bought it under the old price that have it worse... if we make something more expensive, then well we all know there's tons of complaints (but no sign of those who would say "oh boy, glad i bought it before"). So anything we change, someone can complain about. But keep in mind it's a dynamic game... An extreme example is, imagine what would be if it were still possible for a player to have 150 beehives.

kaighn wrote:You know, you guys are absolutely right about these prices. I think im gonna go return all the stuff I have bought in RL from years ago and demand a refund because people can get it cheaper now. Im mean the nerve of these people lowering the prices of something I bought awhile ago. I worked hard to buy all those VHS tapes and now years later they are like a quarter of the price that I paid.

Not understanding are you? lol ok ill break it down for you. Everything goes down in price after awhile (except antiques and such), BUT if you buy something RARE it only goes up in price, if not stay the same. "vhs tapes" were readily available to ANYONE, Not the rich people. Its not about getting something cool and then a month later you notice its on sale, this is an item that you pay millions for because you want this awesome item that you may NEVER have a chance at getting again. If you go out and buy a lamborghini for millions and now look! ALL your friends can afford one now, your gonna tell me that you wont be mad? Your just gonna say "ah cool! It's ok i bought that for 10x's the price, im just glad everyone can afford it now! Your a liar if you say yes. But I didnt ever know that I was paying 4, 5, or 10x's the price just to have it early, otherwise I would have waited. Thank you for clearing this up so I wont bid on it unless I 100% believe it wont be in the deco room a few months later.

+Colibri wrote:The more the better. And during this cooldown time, you still get some extra worth: you're one of the only few who own it.

So we spend X amount of millions at the Auctions to be the first one to have something? only to find out that the Auction itself was a "gold sink" and that item I wanted ever so badly would be available in a few months at 1/4 the price.

+Colibri wrote:Keep in mind that we are the "game masters" so we can do and change anything... of course, we want to make it fair for everyone, and that nobody feels left out or to think that they've been played.

I noticed when we tried to get Unicorns as a spawner, we were told that it was considered a rare spawn so we couldn't have them, only to find out that other people can.

Amberly wrote:I bought the white vanity in the deco room for 12 mil

Unfortunately the one you bought at the auction for 12 mil is defective and can not be sat in. The one in the deco room works just fine at a lower price.

I think what everyone is asking is that you don't drop the value of the item by cutting it down to 1/4 the price they paid for it. It was an Auction item remember? more than 1 person thought it was worth the price the winner got it for. Now that you can buy it for 2-3 mil the first one isn't worth what they paid for it.
It's like punishment for having enough gold at the right time. You wanted that items so you bid on it and got it for 40 mil. Now everyone is laughing at you 5-6 months later cause they are getting it for 10mil. First doesn't seem so cool anymore...and that item just lost alot of value.