Currently the economy works by the rich getting richer , the grinders having a lot less of a good time , and parts of the market being manipulated by one or a few .
Wanna tell me how buying EC directly would change that ?
Buying ec directly would have a negative effect, a the people with zen who can convert it to sellable items for EC would no longer need to do it, since they could convert directly for any ec they may need and as such deprive the have-nots even more, as less FSM items on the exchange with no change in demand would cause the EC price to go up even more.
It would have no effect on the whales, and the non-whales would be (explicative) even more.
They do already... You certainly have seen people selling Master Keys, Fleet Ship Modules and other stuff.
Indeed, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the impact here. Why do they sell FSM's and Keys? To make EC..... if they can direcly convert to EC what is the point in buying keys? There is none, the supply of keys goes down, and the cost of them in EC goes up on the exchange due to dwindle of supply while same demand. Whatever the Zen-> EC becomes, you can rest assured that Keys and FSM's will always cost more in EC than what you can get in Zen, because the market will self adjust.
What did stop the new people from being whales before?
If you read my previous answer , you had you answer right there ... -- the lack of knowledge on how to maximize their wealth .
I think your "new" whales will be exactly the same one as before.
You could be right , for all I know .
But I see them as more of a ... -- well I see them acting the same way as they would if they could just dive in , make their purchase , and dive out again .
I see them as more of a temporary spenders (exactly what Cryptic is looking for btw) .
Some of them won't be in it for the long haul like 'repetitiveepic' for example , which is why in the end there will be room for both their style of Whaling it and long term Whales .
If there is more demand for lockbox items, that means first and foremost that the prices are rising. There won't be suddenly coming a flood of players that are willing to spend even more Zen on STO if they can't actually get more for it than before.
Things may balance out , or not . Again , I don't pretend to be a prophet .
My thoughts stand next to what we have now ... , with next to no valuable loot dropping anymore , and with Cryptic moving more and more toward "buy it now !" .
I made my first kill with selling an [Acc]x3 Lolaron DHC to a (presumably) Whale-ish PVP-er . I made about 200M off that deal back then , and it was just a lucky loot drop .
See any drops like that lately ?
(meaning drops that equal that kind of EC worth)
For any of the cunning sellers out there that got space-rich with the exchange, they know very well that they need to keep the demand high or availability low. They are likely to buy stuff that's too cheap and keep it unlisted until a later point when the availability is low enough.
Possibly . Quite possibly .
But then again , if I look at 'Sheldoncooper's idea of how much he'd want for a 10 spotter (10M EC) , I think that the smart folks @ Cryptic could come up with a math formula that would keep a lockbox ship in the 100$-150$ range , and a desired one at 200$-250$ , via EC sales @ current prices -- something akin to what they are now if you sell keys .
(your math may vary , I just threw out some generic numbers out there)
Buying ec directly would have a negative effect, a the people with zen who can convert it to sellable items for EC would no longer need to do it, since they could convert directly for any ec they may need and as such deprive the have-nots even more, as less FSM items on the exchange with no change in demand would cause the EC price to go up even more.
That's a good point .
The only thing that I can point out is that a year ago , a FSM was about 4.5-5M EC .
Last time I purchased two , they were around 9.5M EC each .
That to me says that the EC market is already worse off than it was a year ago .
It would have no effect on the whales, and the non-whales would be (explicative) even more.
I was't looking for an effect on the whales , but an effect on the economy .
From my POV , we're coming close to a point were grinding for stuff (for us folks who have jobs) might not be worth it anymore .
This game used to have an awesome player friendly economy .
You could focus on something and get it without too much hassle .
These days it feels like the same focus earns you pittens ... , unless you belong to the money-makes-more-money crowd .
Someone talked a while back about how many days you'd have to work @ minimum wage to get one of the DR / LoR bundles VS how many weeks you'd have to grind on a single toon for that same privilege ,
Yeah ... , that's where we are on a Macro sense .
In a Micro sense , you guys are worried that the inflation could get worse if they directly sell EC .
For all I know , you could be right .
But the bigger picture tells us that we're already pucked .
The factor that I think isn't being considered relates to keys - which are the main way to convert now. And this is that I think people want the EC more than the keys themselves on the deal. This has kept the price of keys way lower than a fair dilithium to EC trade. Yes people want keys and some use them like crack, but the lockbox addicts are a limited % of the playerbase, whereas everyone wants EC. So the demand for keys is the driving factor in the exchange rate. Of course cryptic would never mess with this so the discussion is pointless. But I maintain the current exchange rate is bogus.
Lets take 25,000 = 100 zen = 3 million EC (a very good key sale rate but current)
So 250,000 dilithium = 30 million EC
And 1 million refined dilithium = 120 million EC.
So I ask everyone - would you rather have a million refined dilithium delivered to you today or 120 million EC?
I say again I will not sell a million dilithium for that little. It would have to be more like 500 million to whet my interest.
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I can sort of see what you are getting at OP, the prices on the exchange are more expensive than they have any right being for certain items.
But selling EC in the C-Store is not a good option, since it would lead to even more inflation, and thus make things on the exchange even more expensive in the end.
How do one solve the exchange inflation in the end?? No ideas really, but selling EC on the C-Store is not the answer...
l o l @ poll results. Seriously? people buy master keys etc now to sell for EC, whats the difference? Why the 'No's?
Think people. this is merely a convenience option.
l o l @ poll results. Seriously? people buy master keys etc now to sell for EC, whats the difference? Why the 'No's?
Think people. this is merely a convenience option.
But... *Looks at Marctraiderz' vote result* You voted no, too.
"Logic is a little tweeting bird chirping in a meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell BAD." - Spock
I agree with others about inflation. If people can buy EC directly there would be no need to buy fleet ship modules, keys, or any other tradeable item from the c-store. The supply in the exchange would go down and prices would go up, making it more difficult to get such items for players who can farm EC but don't have real cash to spend on the game.
One of the reasons why we aren't suppose to buy from third party websites (gold sellers) is because of inflation. Players will see that more and more their items are being sold at high prices and they'll take advantage of that by constantly increasing their prices. It ends up making players who don't buy EC unable to afford various items other players are selling, thus making them get further and further behind those who can buy EC.
The factor that I think isn't being considered relates to keys - which are the main way to convert now. And this is that I think people want the EC more than the keys themselves on the deal. This has kept the price of keys way lower than a fair dilithium to EC trade. Yes people want keys and some use them like crack, but the lockbox addicts are a limited % of the playerbase, whereas everyone wants EC. So the demand for keys is the driving factor in the exchange rate. Of course cryptic would never mess with this so the discussion is pointless. But I maintain the current exchange rate is bogus.
Lets take 25,000 = 100 zen = 3 million EC (a very good key sale rate but current)
So 250,000 dilithium = 30 million EC
And 1 million refined dilithium = 120 million EC.
So I ask everyone - would you rather have a million refined dilithium delivered to you today or 120 million EC?
I say again I will not sell a million dilithium for that little. It would have to be more like 500 million to whet my interest.
Personally I have a few million dilithium sitting around. I don't have 120m. The rate of generation of EC is extremely low and you have to consider that, especially given the sinks already there. As much as you might make EC quickly via the exchange, it has to be generated first somewhere, usually by selling junk to NPC vendors.
If I can go and buy boat loads of EC, so can everyone else. The value of everything on the exchange would go up and we'd be back at square one.
It's like trying to solve poverty by simply printing more money and handing it out.
Everywhere I look, people are screaming about how bad Cryptic is.
What's my position?
That people should know what they're screaming about!
(paraphrased from "The Newsroom)
you are basically suggesting a fixed rate of exchange between ec and zen, that in its own right is a crazy, in the 1st instance that simple action would instantly result in the retiring of zen items appearing on the exchange, as the only folk that sell zen items on the exchange are trading for ec. that in turn kills part of the fun many players have in trying their luck for lockbox goodies a few times a week when they buy their keys from loot sales and mission rewards, or the crafters who currently sell on the exchange to buy keys to open boxes etc etc.. if you think that wont push the price of lobi goods or lockbox ships up.. think again. we also have the players who cant spend real world money, and as they only run 2 characters dilithium farming isnt an deal option, so they farm ec to purchase the things they need, based on the above they cant now get a fleet ship and based on below the value of the ec they are farming is depreciating.. in short they'd be borked.
if we can buy ec for zen then we can also buy it for dilithium. now, even with lots of dilithium sinks in game, we still have inflation, so imagine introducing a mechanic in game that allows you to print ec for zen and dilithium, all we can do with ec is pretty much trade it between players, so with no sinks or any other way to remove it from the economy, ec will continue to loose value, which will lead to having to increase the zen to ec exchange rate, which further compounds the issue.. we think the inflation we have now is bad? lol
what is the point of trading via the exchange if ec looses any appreciable value? there wont be really, so you will start to see trade channels opening up and most of the desirable items will end up being traded outside the exchange. inflation aside, the current manner of things works well and is balanced.
maybe a severe view of things, but that's the direction it would go.
Given the outrageous cost of some weapons, gear (consoles), items like Fleet Ship Modules, and even Lockbox ships, compared to 'average' player EC income, should Cryptic sell EC in the Store?
It would make no sense to use real cash to buy fake cash; real money for zen is enough of a real money exchange.
It kind of does make sensem for example, if I want to control the Leech market, and I use billions of EC to keep buying them, but then I run out of EC, I am forced to sell something to get more EC. If I could purchase EC really fast with zen, I can keep refilling my EC banks and buying the Leeches until the price is where I want it, or have control over the market.
First off, I'll admit to not reading every response, so if this is repetitive, sorry.
I don't know for certain that it will cause EC inflation (it almost certainly would), but it would be making the mistake of creating a command economy in an environment that mostly works as a free market now. (Okay, technically it would be chaining a microcosmic command economy to the real world mostly-free-market, but with the added complication of players acquiring good with a cash value without giving Cryptic actual money, and in a way that greatly exaggerates the effects of the command economy in-game compared to the free market to which it is tied in real life). There are already shades of that problem in the (sometimes frankly ridiculous) ZEN prices of C-Store goods, but most of the game's economy is player-driven and organic. The more things that get literal price tags in the C-Store, the less player-driven that economy is, and the worse it is for players (with, admittedly, the exception of players willing to spend a large amount of real money on the game). Making one of those things one of the other in-game currencies just makes the problem exponentially worse.
Lets sell something for 900 million EC. Some rich kids will want it so they will charge millions of zen to buy. Great success!! And because people know that now you can just buy EC from the c-store, they keep rising the exchange prices. Hurraaa!! now, everything is almost impossible to buy for people who dont buy ec from the cstore. Now what?? unfortunately the market is so broken by then , that now everything is a mess. This is bassically the little story of what would happen. Dilithium?? forget about dilithium??? nobody will use dilithium anymore lol. More chaos. I mean, im pretty sure the op didnt even think for a moment the repercusions this will have lol. Just epic. But this thread continues...
Of course not. Generating more EC in the economy would just lead to rampant inflation.
A game with a 1 billion money cap and a 500 million Exchange sale cap can't handle more inflation. EC would collapse into the impossibility of carrying enough and anything actually valuabe would have to be bartered for.
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Buying ec directly would have a negative effect, a the people with zen who can convert it to sellable items for EC would no longer need to do it, since they could convert directly for any ec they may need and as such deprive the have-nots even more, as less FSM items on the exchange with no change in demand would cause the EC price to go up even more.
It would have no effect on the whales, and the non-whales would be (explicative) even more.
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Indeed, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the impact here. Why do they sell FSM's and Keys? To make EC..... if they can direcly convert to EC what is the point in buying keys? There is none, the supply of keys goes down, and the cost of them in EC goes up on the exchange due to dwindle of supply while same demand. Whatever the Zen-> EC becomes, you can rest assured that Keys and FSM's will always cost more in EC than what you can get in Zen, because the market will self adjust.
If you read my previous answer , you had you answer right there ... -- the lack of knowledge on how to maximize their wealth .
You could be right , for all I know .
But I see them as more of a ... -- well I see them acting the same way as they would if they could just dive in , make their purchase , and dive out again .
I see them as more of a temporary spenders (exactly what Cryptic is looking for btw) .
Some of them won't be in it for the long haul like 'repetitiveepic' for example , which is why in the end there will be room for both their style of Whaling it and long term Whales .
Things may balance out , or not . Again , I don't pretend to be a prophet .
My thoughts stand next to what we have now ... , with next to no valuable loot dropping anymore , and with Cryptic moving more and more toward "buy it now !" .
I made my first kill with selling an [Acc]x3 Lolaron DHC to a (presumably) Whale-ish PVP-er . I made about 200M off that deal back then , and it was just a lucky loot drop .
See any drops like that lately ?
(meaning drops that equal that kind of EC worth)
Possibly . Quite possibly .
But then again , if I look at 'Sheldoncooper's idea of how much he'd want for a 10 spotter (10M EC) , I think that the smart folks @ Cryptic could come up with a math formula that would keep a lockbox ship in the 100$-150$ range , and a desired one at 200$-250$ , via EC sales @ current prices -- something akin to what they are now if you sell keys .
(your math may vary , I just threw out some generic numbers out there)
100% agreed.
That's a good point .
The only thing that I can point out is that a year ago , a FSM was about 4.5-5M EC .
Last time I purchased two , they were around 9.5M EC each .
That to me says that the EC market is already worse off than it was a year ago .
I was't looking for an effect on the whales , but an effect on the economy .
From my POV , we're coming close to a point were grinding for stuff (for us folks who have jobs) might not be worth it anymore .
This game used to have an awesome player friendly economy .
You could focus on something and get it without too much hassle .
These days it feels like the same focus earns you pittens ... , unless you belong to the money-makes-more-money crowd .
Someone talked a while back about how many days you'd have to work @ minimum wage to get one of the DR / LoR bundles VS how many weeks you'd have to grind on a single toon for that same privilege ,
Yeah ... , that's where we are on a Macro sense .
In a Micro sense , you guys are worried that the inflation could get worse if they directly sell EC .
For all I know , you could be right .
But the bigger picture tells us that we're already pucked .
Lets take 25,000 = 100 zen = 3 million EC (a very good key sale rate but current)
So 250,000 dilithium = 30 million EC
And 1 million refined dilithium = 120 million EC.
So I ask everyone - would you rather have a million refined dilithium delivered to you today or 120 million EC?
I say again I will not sell a million dilithium for that little. It would have to be more like 500 million to whet my interest.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
But selling EC in the C-Store is not a good option, since it would lead to even more inflation, and thus make things on the exchange even more expensive in the end.
How do one solve the exchange inflation in the end?? No ideas really, but selling EC on the C-Store is not the answer...
I believe it would cut into the profits Cryptic gets from the Gold Sellers.
Think people. this is merely a convenience option.
But... *Looks at Marctraiderz' vote result* You voted no, too.
One of the reasons why we aren't suppose to buy from third party websites (gold sellers) is because of inflation. Players will see that more and more their items are being sold at high prices and they'll take advantage of that by constantly increasing their prices. It ends up making players who don't buy EC unable to afford various items other players are selling, thus making them get further and further behind those who can buy EC.
Personally I have a few million dilithium sitting around. I don't have 120m. The rate of generation of EC is extremely low and you have to consider that, especially given the sinks already there. As much as you might make EC quickly via the exchange, it has to be generated first somewhere, usually by selling junk to NPC vendors.
It's like trying to solve poverty by simply printing more money and handing it out.
What's my position?
That people should know what they're screaming about!
(paraphrased from "The Newsroom)
if we can buy ec for zen then we can also buy it for dilithium. now, even with lots of dilithium sinks in game, we still have inflation, so imagine introducing a mechanic in game that allows you to print ec for zen and dilithium, all we can do with ec is pretty much trade it between players, so with no sinks or any other way to remove it from the economy, ec will continue to loose value, which will lead to having to increase the zen to ec exchange rate, which further compounds the issue.. we think the inflation we have now is bad? lol
what is the point of trading via the exchange if ec looses any appreciable value? there wont be really, so you will start to see trade channels opening up and most of the desirable items will end up being traded outside the exchange. inflation aside, the current manner of things works well and is balanced.
maybe a severe view of things, but that's the direction it would go.
Nope, EC is fine where it is at....
Buying Lobi items and C-store stuff with $$ and then putting those up on the exchange for EC works just fine.
It kind of does make sensem for example, if I want to control the Leech market, and I use billions of EC to keep buying them, but then I run out of EC, I am forced to sell something to get more EC. If I could purchase EC really fast with zen, I can keep refilling my EC banks and buying the Leeches until the price is where I want it, or have control over the market.
I don't know for certain that it will cause EC inflation (it almost certainly would), but it would be making the mistake of creating a command economy in an environment that mostly works as a free market now. (Okay, technically it would be chaining a microcosmic command economy to the real world mostly-free-market, but with the added complication of players acquiring good with a cash value without giving Cryptic actual money, and in a way that greatly exaggerates the effects of the command economy in-game compared to the free market to which it is tied in real life). There are already shades of that problem in the (sometimes frankly ridiculous) ZEN prices of C-Store goods, but most of the game's economy is player-driven and organic. The more things that get literal price tags in the C-Store, the less player-driven that economy is, and the worse it is for players (with, admittedly, the exception of players willing to spend a large amount of real money on the game). Making one of those things one of the other in-game currencies just makes the problem exponentially worse.
A game with a 1 billion money cap and a 500 million Exchange sale cap can't handle more inflation. EC would collapse into the impossibility of carrying enough and anything actually valuabe would have to be bartered for.