I agree with that completely, believe you me. But in real world there is always an alternative. The consumer is able to compare offers of various sellers and pick the one that suits him best whether it's cheaper or of better quality. What we have here in STO is called "price fixing" and has nothing to do with supply or demand.
Wrong.
If Dilithium had sufficentlly low value, (minimal things to spend it on so grinding out enough for anything but exchange selling was trivial), and there was not a shortage of zen to sell the price WOULD drop.
The peole sellign just wouldn't need much dilithium per zen, (becuase they need very littile dilithium at all in the first place), to be happy with the exchange.
Thats why the looming shortage of dilithium will drive prices up. Everyones desperate for dilithium and isn't going to be willing to fork out 1000's of real world money to get enough of it for what they want, (i.e. starbases). So they'll demand lot of it per sen. But in the previous situation they might well be able to get all the dilithium they need for a handful of real money even at low prices.
UIt's all about the conviniance factor. When dilithium is low value the dilithium sellers control the market because gettign a lot of dilithium per zen take a lot of time and give only very small real world savings. The conviniance of caving to their demands is worth the extra real world cost. When demand for dilithium is high however the cost increase can be very significant because of how much dilithium people want. So they're far less willing to pay up the money unless they're getting a lot. The more they need the higher a payoff per zen they'll demand. It's not a liniear relationship. Typiclly as the dilithium cost rises, the IRL converted cost will rise, but at a markedly slower and non-linier rate.
All I know is that playing the spread on the dilithium market I netted $1.35 in Zen this week. LOL!!!!
__________________________________
STO Forum member since before February 2010. STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
True. But more to the point, Zen is a luxury good. I fail to how "taking advantage" of other players in this way is even possible. If Zen were a necessity-- rather, if there were ANY necessities in the game-- we could have this discussion. You can't take advantage of someone simply by offering a luxury good for a high price. If the good is not as advertised, then sure you can take advantage (that's why we have lemon laws IRL).
But IRL you can get around the lemon laws by clearly telling the buyer and listing the vehicle for sale is being sold "as-is". That means if they buy it and it turns out to be a lemon they are stuck with it cause the car was sold as is.
But IRL you can get around the lemon laws by clearly telling the buyer and listing the vehicle for sale is being sold "as-is". That means if they buy it and it turns out to be a lemon they are stuck with it cause the car was sold as is.
Yes, but it being listed as-is is a sign to the buyer that they should check out the merchandise to see if it is worth the asking price. And there are no lemons in STO (well, I've received a few data pads that couldn't be used-- but there are certainly no lemon dilithium crystals, which is the issue here).
Hmm... lemon dilithium crystals... that sounds like a delicious dessert...
Yes, but it being listed as-is is a sign to the buyer that they should check out the merchandise to see if it is worth the asking price. And there are no lemons in STO (well, I've received a few data pads that couldn't be used-- but there are certainly no lemon dilithium crystals, which is the issue here).
Hmm... lemon dilithium crystals... that sounds like a delicious dessert...
Youd be suprised at how people are taken advantage of when it comes to buying from private sellers.
I could tell many stories from the guy selling a LeMans as a GTO for $5,000 when it was only worth about $2,500 being a LeMans down to a guy selling a Rivera for $3,000 cause thats what he paid for it even though he bought it out of a barn which means he gave only a couple hundred for it.
When ever you buy from an individual it is always a unspoken sold "as is" but people dont realize that.
Now here people can be taken advantage of by the simple fact that they dont know that they are giving up more dilithium than they should. Say they sold 100 C-points for Dilithium at rates of 355:1. Meaning they got 35,500 dilithium. They sat on it till the rates went to 275:1 and they sold the 35,500 dilithium at 275:1 and ended up with 129 C-points. They made a total of 129 C-points or $1.61. Now the currency changes and that 129 C-points is now 161 Zen points which still equal $1.61. Now people dont know that with the currency change that 100 Zen points = $1.00 or 1 Zen point = $0.01 where as 80 C-points = $1.00 and 1 C-point = $0.0125. This means that C-points are slightly more valuable than Zen resulting in you having to have 20 more Zen points to make a whole $1.00 compared to the C-points.
Now people see dilithium is selling for 270:1 and think oh look the market has come down. But in reality the market hasnt changed much at all considering Zen is worth slightly less than a C-point. With people not realizing this they can make bad choices based off this lack or misrepresentation of information.
Lets say I bought 100 C-points worth of Dilithium at 345:1. That is $1.25 buying 34,500 Dilithium. Ok I hold on to it and now the conversion comes along and I see the rates are now 300:1. I figure oh I sell the 34,500 dilithium I bought with 100 points I can turn my orignal investment of 100 points into 100+ points. But with Zen being slightly less valuable in dollar value, selling 34,500 dilithium at 300:1 means you end up with 115 Zen points or $1.15. Ive just lost $0.10 when I thought I was making a slight profit since the Dilithium rates dropped from 345:1 down to 300:1. In order to break even I would have to sell 34,500 Dilithium at 275:1 and to make any profit I would have to sell it at 274:1 on down to 100:1 to make a profit.
That is how easy a person that is out of the loop can be taken advantage of. Taking advantage of someone is using their ignorance against them to get something out of them that they otherwise wouldnt do if it was a informed decision.
Let's be honest here. If we *really* read into things, the issue, truly, isn't the concern that other people are getting ripped off. It's that the OP can't buy Dilithium at the prices he wants (because the prices are set by *player* supply and demand).
"Back on topic. Destinii is correct."
(Formerly Destinii until the 'Great PWE Forum Shakeup of 2012')
If the cash value had remained intact, dilithium would be 272 dilithium because ZEN = more cash per point.
Bad math and an excess of speculation has driven the price in the wrong direction. It may also factor in that some currencies internationally seem to have adjusted their exchange rate relative to points.
My advice right now is to BUY dilithium because its cash value is overinflated.
Because 1 ZEN is worth more than 1 Cryptic point, it should take fewer of them to buy the same amount of dilithium.
Youd be suprised at how people are taken advantage of when it comes to buying from private sellers.
I could tell many stories from the guy selling a LeMans as a GTO for $5,000 when it was only worth about $2,500 being a LeMans down to a guy selling a Rivera for $3,000 cause thats what he paid for it even though he bought it out of a barn which means he gave only a couple hundred for it.
When ever you buy from an individual it is always a unspoken sold "as is" but people dont realize that.
Now here people can be taken advantage of by the simple fact that they dont know that they are giving up more dilithium than they should. Say they sold 100 C-points for Dilithium at rates of 355:1. Meaning they got 35,500 dilithium. They sat on it till the rates went to 275:1 and they sold the 35,500 dilithium at 275:1 and ended up with 129 C-points. They made a total of 129 C-points or $1.61. Now the currency changes and that 129 C-points is now 161 Zen points which still equal $1.61. Now people dont know that with the currency change that 100 Zen points = $1.00 or 1 Zen point = $0.01 where as 80 C-points = $1.00 and 1 C-point = $0.0125. This means that C-points are slightly more valuable than Zen resulting in you having to have 20 more Zen points to make a whole $1.00 compared to the C-points.
Now people see dilithium is selling for 270:1 and think oh look the market has come down. But in reality the market hasnt changed much at all considering Zen is worth slightly less than a C-point. With people not realizing this they can make bad choices based off this lack or misrepresentation of information.
Lets say I bought 100 C-points worth of Dilithium at 345:1. That is $1.25 buying 34,500 Dilithium. Ok I hold on to it and now the conversion comes along and I see the rates are now 300:1. I figure oh I sell the 34,500 dilithium I bought with 100 points I can turn my orignal investment of 100 points into 100+ points. But with Zen being slightly less valuable in dollar value, selling 34,500 dilithium at 300:1 means you end up with 115 Zen points or $1.15. Ive just lost $0.10 when I thought I was making a slight profit since the Dilithium rates dropped from 345:1 down to 300:1. In order to break even I would have to sell 34,500 Dilithium at 275:1 and to make any profit I would have to sell it at 274:1 on down to 100:1 to make a profit.
That is how easy a person that is out of the loop can be taken advantage of. Taking advantage of someone is using their ignorance against them to get something out of them that they otherwise wouldnt do if it was a informed decision.
It actually does not surprise me, but unfortunately caution is a lesson everyone must learn. But let's talk about STO, not real life. Real life is depressing.
"Taking advantage of another person" has a couple of different practical interpretations. It really just means that one person has an advantage relative to another, and uses it to their benefit. This can mean having better information about a situation that affects them both, or it can mean controlling a limited resource that the other needs, etc. For example, if I own the only road from point A to point B, then I can take advantage by charging a toll on the road. However, there are more subtle ways to take advantage. Convenience stores charge significantly more for goods than other stores, but they do not have a local monopoly over those goods; they are taking advantage of the average person's relative desire for convenience. On average, I wouldn't judge this as an inherently bad type of "taking advantage". The buyer has many other options, albeit slightly less convenient ones. The increased price reflects what the buyer is will to pay for convenience.
Ultimately, the bad kind of "taking advantage" requires some kind of intent on the part of the person who has an advantage.
Not everyone buying and selling on the dil exchange are uninformed. Many are very informed and take risks that don't pan out. In game, there is no function for communicating with potential buyers to ensure that they have perfect information. Cryptic posted many notices far in advance about the conversion. Many people on the forum and in Zone chat discussed the conversion (at least English speaking players-- I won't speculate about whether there was equal discussion among non-English speaking players). Perhaps communication about the repercussions of the conversion should have been made clearer (more communication is rarely bad).
I've seen several people on here arguing incorrectly about the C--> Zen conversion rates-- that have clearly multiplied by .8 when they should have divided, and vice-versa-- and then they are corrected by another poster. Given that the situation has now been explained to them, can I assume I'm not taking advantage of them? Or am I taking advantage because it's possible that they still don't get it? I'm not intending to sell to them specifically, but how do I ensure that I don't? At what point does the onus of being informed rest on the buyer? I've known people who had no idea how much student loan debt they were racking up because they never opened their Direct Loan statements. Whose fault is that? Maliciously withholding information is one thing, but a buyer failing to seize freely available information is another. And frankly, the latter is a problem in STO.. many players don't feel the need to be careful with their dilithium in game, because "it's free". Sure it's not free, but that's their attitude, so they are going to be careless with it. This is, unfortunately, how many consumers felt about credit cards. But this is a game, and the great thing about games is that they provide opportunities for players to learn many things about real life without real life repercussions.
There is absolutely no way to tell how many players got ripped off due to lack of perfect information versus how many just started playing the market when the game came back up. I don't think it had as much of an impact as you think. As I understand it (hearsay, I wasn't on to see this), Cryptic did not adjust the dil/Zen prices to reflect the conversion, so the game came back with 340/Zen instead of 272/Zen. It was a totally dumb situation, but is hardly the fault of those that left offers up during the update. I repeat from a previous post: playing the dil market ultimately comes down to patient players taking advantage of impatient players, a situation analogous to the convenience store. This is not malicious behavior. And I still believe that Zen and Zen ships are luxury goods, whose values are largely relative to the player. See my post about yachts.
But if you believe that this was malicious behavior, that's okay too. We can agree to disagree.
Okay, after this, another dreadfully long post, I'm going to shut up for a while.
Actually thats not bs, a object is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. You can have a car valued at $500,000 but if no one will pay more than $2,000 for it then its only worth $2,000 cause thats all you can get for it.
We have Zen and we have dilithium. Some of us need Zen, and some of us need dilithium. Those are two of the currencies you can use to buy things in STO. If both are needed (which is logical because people sell their Zen points), then why only Zen prices go up?
If it was a real world, prices would fluctuate. If it was a real world Zen would be offered for a wide range of prices. If it was a real world the market would be inspected. That's why it is not true to say it functions here as in real world.
Finally - how come Zen gains 14% overnight despite the need to pump dilithium into starbase system and nerfing the process of acquiring dilithium?
In the EU when countries change their currency to Euro there is a transitional period during which people are getting accustomed to new money and new values. Have a look at this forum and check how often people complained about store prices going up (sic!) after converting to Zen.
We have Zen and we have dilithium. Some of us need Zen, and some of us need dilithium. Those are two of the currencies you can use to buy things in STO. If both are needed (which is logical because people sell their Zen points), then why only Zen prices go up?
If it was a real world, prices would fluctuate. If it was a real world Zen would be offered for a wide range of prices. If it was a real world the market would be inspected. That's why it is not true to say it functions here as in real world.
There is demand for both but that does not equate to equal demand. There is demand for both chocolate bars and brand new sports cars. Does that mean you will sell me a brand new sports car for a chocolate bar?
And markets fluctuate all the time. It is called 'market volatility.' When there is some obvious outside explanation, such as a radical change to the economy, markets tend to be more volatile until they sort themselves out.
Finally - how come Zen gains 14% overnight despite the need to pump dilithium into starbase system and nerfing the process of acquiring dilithium?
In the EU when countries change their currency to Euro there is a transitional period during which people are getting accustomed to new money and new values. Have a look at this forum and check how often people complained about store prices going up (sic!) after converting to Zen.
Exactly. We are in a period of market volatility brought on by the recent major changes to the game, both the advent of starbases and of the revaluation of the currency to zen.
We have Zen and we have dilithium. Some of us need Zen, and some of us need dilithium. Those are two of the currencies you can use to buy things in STO. If both are needed (which is logical because people sell their Zen points), then why only Zen prices go up?
If it was a real world, prices would fluctuate. If it was a real world Zen would be offered for a wide range of prices. If it was a real world the market would be inspected. That's why it is not true to say it functions here as in real world.
Finally - how come Zen gains 14% overnight despite the need to pump dilithium into starbase system and nerfing the process of acquiring dilithium?
In the EU when countries change their currency to Euro there is a transitional period during which people are getting accustomed to new money and new values. Have a look at this forum and check how often people complained about store prices going up (sic!) after converting to Zen.
What do you mean by Zen gains 14% over night? You mean you get 14% more points in Zen vs C-points?
Not exactly sure what you are meaning. I see the dilithium market was down in the 290`s :1 last night and this morning were at 277:1. The value of Dilitihium is coming up which is good for those of us that sold Zen points for dilithium when Dilitihium values were down.
It's just the beginning. I plan on netting at least $5 by the end of the summer. Wooooot!!!
__________________________________
STO Forum member since before February 2010. STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
We have Zen and we have dilithium. Some of us need Zen, and some of us need dilithium. Those are two of the currencies you can use to buy things in STO. If both are needed (which is logical because people sell their Zen points), then why only Zen prices go up?
If it was a real world, prices would fluctuate. If it was a real world Zen would be offered for a wide range of prices. If it was a real world the market would be inspected. That's why it is not true to say it functions here as in real world.
Finally - how come Zen gains 14% overnight despite the need to pump dilithium into starbase system and nerfing the process of acquiring dilithium?
In the EU when countries change their currency to Euro there is a transitional period during which people are getting accustomed to new money and new values. Have a look at this forum and check how often people complained about store prices going up (sic!) after converting to Zen.
here be the TRIBBLE in your logic here - I paid real $ for my zen - people trying to sell me dil just had to grind for it -- guess what? I can grind my own Dil just as easy as anyone else can, while it'll cost me more $ to replace my zen -- when 1zp will net me 100k dil, I might let one or two go, be glad others just want 300 something.
Comments
Wrong.
If Dilithium had sufficentlly low value, (minimal things to spend it on so grinding out enough for anything but exchange selling was trivial), and there was not a shortage of zen to sell the price WOULD drop.
The peole sellign just wouldn't need much dilithium per zen, (becuase they need very littile dilithium at all in the first place), to be happy with the exchange.
Thats why the looming shortage of dilithium will drive prices up. Everyones desperate for dilithium and isn't going to be willing to fork out 1000's of real world money to get enough of it for what they want, (i.e. starbases). So they'll demand lot of it per sen. But in the previous situation they might well be able to get all the dilithium they need for a handful of real money even at low prices.
UIt's all about the conviniance factor. When dilithium is low value the dilithium sellers control the market because gettign a lot of dilithium per zen take a lot of time and give only very small real world savings. The conviniance of caving to their demands is worth the extra real world cost. When demand for dilithium is high however the cost increase can be very significant because of how much dilithium people want. So they're far less willing to pay up the money unless they're getting a lot. The more they need the higher a payoff per zen they'll demand. It's not a liniear relationship. Typiclly as the dilithium cost rises, the IRL converted cost will rise, but at a markedly slower and non-linier rate.
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
But IRL you can get around the lemon laws by clearly telling the buyer and listing the vehicle for sale is being sold "as-is". That means if they buy it and it turns out to be a lemon they are stuck with it cause the car was sold as is.
I got $1.82. We're rich!
Yes, but it being listed as-is is a sign to the buyer that they should check out the merchandise to see if it is worth the asking price. And there are no lemons in STO (well, I've received a few data pads that couldn't be used-- but there are certainly no lemon dilithium crystals, which is the issue here).
Hmm... lemon dilithium crystals... that sounds like a delicious dessert...
Youd be suprised at how people are taken advantage of when it comes to buying from private sellers.
I could tell many stories from the guy selling a LeMans as a GTO for $5,000 when it was only worth about $2,500 being a LeMans down to a guy selling a Rivera for $3,000 cause thats what he paid for it even though he bought it out of a barn which means he gave only a couple hundred for it.
When ever you buy from an individual it is always a unspoken sold "as is" but people dont realize that.
Now here people can be taken advantage of by the simple fact that they dont know that they are giving up more dilithium than they should. Say they sold 100 C-points for Dilithium at rates of 355:1. Meaning they got 35,500 dilithium. They sat on it till the rates went to 275:1 and they sold the 35,500 dilithium at 275:1 and ended up with 129 C-points. They made a total of 129 C-points or $1.61. Now the currency changes and that 129 C-points is now 161 Zen points which still equal $1.61. Now people dont know that with the currency change that 100 Zen points = $1.00 or 1 Zen point = $0.01 where as 80 C-points = $1.00 and 1 C-point = $0.0125. This means that C-points are slightly more valuable than Zen resulting in you having to have 20 more Zen points to make a whole $1.00 compared to the C-points.
Now people see dilithium is selling for 270:1 and think oh look the market has come down. But in reality the market hasnt changed much at all considering Zen is worth slightly less than a C-point. With people not realizing this they can make bad choices based off this lack or misrepresentation of information.
Lets say I bought 100 C-points worth of Dilithium at 345:1. That is $1.25 buying 34,500 Dilithium. Ok I hold on to it and now the conversion comes along and I see the rates are now 300:1. I figure oh I sell the 34,500 dilithium I bought with 100 points I can turn my orignal investment of 100 points into 100+ points. But with Zen being slightly less valuable in dollar value, selling 34,500 dilithium at 300:1 means you end up with 115 Zen points or $1.15. Ive just lost $0.10 when I thought I was making a slight profit since the Dilithium rates dropped from 345:1 down to 300:1. In order to break even I would have to sell 34,500 Dilithium at 275:1 and to make any profit I would have to sell it at 274:1 on down to 100:1 to make a profit.
That is how easy a person that is out of the loop can be taken advantage of. Taking advantage of someone is using their ignorance against them to get something out of them that they otherwise wouldnt do if it was a informed decision.
"Back on topic. Destinii is correct."
(Formerly Destinii until the 'Great PWE Forum Shakeup of 2012')
seriously people
MATH FAIL
1 C-Point = 1.25 cents
1 Z-Point = 1 cent
+ - is HARD... that's how they get you!
It actually does not surprise me, but unfortunately caution is a lesson everyone must learn. But let's talk about STO, not real life. Real life is depressing.
"Taking advantage of another person" has a couple of different practical interpretations. It really just means that one person has an advantage relative to another, and uses it to their benefit. This can mean having better information about a situation that affects them both, or it can mean controlling a limited resource that the other needs, etc. For example, if I own the only road from point A to point B, then I can take advantage by charging a toll on the road. However, there are more subtle ways to take advantage. Convenience stores charge significantly more for goods than other stores, but they do not have a local monopoly over those goods; they are taking advantage of the average person's relative desire for convenience. On average, I wouldn't judge this as an inherently bad type of "taking advantage". The buyer has many other options, albeit slightly less convenient ones. The increased price reflects what the buyer is will to pay for convenience.
Ultimately, the bad kind of "taking advantage" requires some kind of intent on the part of the person who has an advantage.
Not everyone buying and selling on the dil exchange are uninformed. Many are very informed and take risks that don't pan out. In game, there is no function for communicating with potential buyers to ensure that they have perfect information. Cryptic posted many notices far in advance about the conversion. Many people on the forum and in Zone chat discussed the conversion (at least English speaking players-- I won't speculate about whether there was equal discussion among non-English speaking players). Perhaps communication about the repercussions of the conversion should have been made clearer (more communication is rarely bad).
I've seen several people on here arguing incorrectly about the C--> Zen conversion rates-- that have clearly multiplied by .8 when they should have divided, and vice-versa-- and then they are corrected by another poster. Given that the situation has now been explained to them, can I assume I'm not taking advantage of them? Or am I taking advantage because it's possible that they still don't get it? I'm not intending to sell to them specifically, but how do I ensure that I don't? At what point does the onus of being informed rest on the buyer? I've known people who had no idea how much student loan debt they were racking up because they never opened their Direct Loan statements. Whose fault is that? Maliciously withholding information is one thing, but a buyer failing to seize freely available information is another. And frankly, the latter is a problem in STO.. many players don't feel the need to be careful with their dilithium in game, because "it's free". Sure it's not free, but that's their attitude, so they are going to be careless with it. This is, unfortunately, how many consumers felt about credit cards. But this is a game, and the great thing about games is that they provide opportunities for players to learn many things about real life without real life repercussions.
There is absolutely no way to tell how many players got ripped off due to lack of perfect information versus how many just started playing the market when the game came back up. I don't think it had as much of an impact as you think. As I understand it (hearsay, I wasn't on to see this), Cryptic did not adjust the dil/Zen prices to reflect the conversion, so the game came back with 340/Zen instead of 272/Zen. It was a totally dumb situation, but is hardly the fault of those that left offers up during the update. I repeat from a previous post: playing the dil market ultimately comes down to patient players taking advantage of impatient players, a situation analogous to the convenience store. This is not malicious behavior. And I still believe that Zen and Zen ships are luxury goods, whose values are largely relative to the player. See my post about yachts.
But if you believe that this was malicious behavior, that's okay too. We can agree to disagree.
Okay, after this, another dreadfully long post, I'm going to shut up for a while.
If it was a real world, prices would fluctuate. If it was a real world Zen would be offered for a wide range of prices. If it was a real world the market would be inspected. That's why it is not true to say it functions here as in real world.
Finally - how come Zen gains 14% overnight despite the need to pump dilithium into starbase system and nerfing the process of acquiring dilithium?
In the EU when countries change their currency to Euro there is a transitional period during which people are getting accustomed to new money and new values. Have a look at this forum and check how often people complained about store prices going up (sic!) after converting to Zen.
There is demand for both but that does not equate to equal demand. There is demand for both chocolate bars and brand new sports cars. Does that mean you will sell me a brand new sports car for a chocolate bar?
And markets fluctuate all the time. It is called 'market volatility.' When there is some obvious outside explanation, such as a radical change to the economy, markets tend to be more volatile until they sort themselves out.
Exactly. We are in a period of market volatility brought on by the recent major changes to the game, both the advent of starbases and of the revaluation of the currency to zen.
What do you mean by Zen gains 14% over night? You mean you get 14% more points in Zen vs C-points?
Not exactly sure what you are meaning. I see the dilithium market was down in the 290`s :1 last night and this morning were at 277:1. The value of Dilitihium is coming up which is good for those of us that sold Zen points for dilithium when Dilitihium values were down.
It's just the beginning. I plan on netting at least $5 by the end of the summer. Wooooot!!!
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
here be the TRIBBLE in your logic here - I paid real $ for my zen - people trying to sell me dil just had to grind for it -- guess what? I can grind my own Dil just as easy as anyone else can, while it'll cost me more $ to replace my zen -- when 1zp will net me 100k dil, I might let one or two go, be glad others just want 300 something.
Me playing UT2k4 (red guy) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz0DnP7wXnU